MODERN     MEN 
AND    MUMMERS 


BY 

HESKETH   PEARSON 


NEW   YORK 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


CT 


COPYRIGHT,   1922,   BY 
HARCOURT,    BRACE  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


PRINTED  IN  THE  U  S.  A.  BV 

THE  QUINN  a  BODEN  COMPANY 

RAHWAY.  N.  J. 


CONTENTS 

Modern  Men  and  Mummers 

PAGE 

I.    BERNARD  SHAW 7 

II.    SIR  HERBERT  TREE      ....  38 

III.  SIR  FRANCIS  GALTON  ....  58 

IV.  SIR  GEORGE  ALEXANDER    ...  74 
V.    FRANK  HARRIS     .        .        .        .        .  95 

VI.    LYTTON  STRACHEY      ....  125 

VII.    SIR  JOHNSTON  FORBES-ROBERTSON    .  132 

VIII.    STEPHEN  PHILLIPS      ....  137 

IX.    FRANK  BENSON 148 

X.    ROBERT  Ross 152 

XI.    PLAYWRIGHT  PRODUCERS    .       .       .  161 

Post-Impressions 

I.    H.  G.  WELLS        .       .       .       .       .  173 

II.    EDMUND  GOSSE    *                      .       .  175 

III.  ARTHUR  BOURCHIER  ....  177 

IV.  MRS.  ASQUITH     ...       .       .  179 
V.    SIR  HALL  CAINE 180 

VI.    LEWIS  WALLER 185 

VII.   WINSTON  CHURCHILL  187 


4  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

VIII.   JOSEPH  CONRAD 189 

IX.   DEAN  INGE 191 

X.  MRS.  PATRICK  CAMPBELL   .       .       .192 

XI.  FATHER  BERNARD  VAUGHAN     .       .     194 

XII.  IRENE  VANBRUGH        ....     196 

XIII.  LLOYD  GEORGE 198 

XIV.  GENEVIEVE  WARD        ....     200 
XV.  "JOHN  BULL"    .....     201 

XVI.  THE  IRVINGS        .       .       .       .       .203 

XVII.  THE  CHESTERTONS      ....     205 

XVIII.  GERALD  CUMBERLAND                             208 


MODERN   MEN 
AND  MUMMERS 


BERNARD  SHAW 

WE  moderns  are  the  products  of  Bernard  Shaw.  In 
that  whole  riot  of  imaginary  nonsense  which  G.  K. 
Chesterton  gave  to  the  world  under  the  heading  of 
"  George  Bernard  Shaw,"  there  stands  out  one  very 
fine  and  very  true  thing — the  summary  of  Shaw's 
ennobling  influence  on  the  spirit  of  his  age.  The  rest 
of  the  book  is  worthless  as  a  criticism  of  Shaw  though 
interesting  as  a  revelation  of  Chesterton. 

The  thing  that  alienated  most  people  from  Shaw 
was  precisely  the  thing  that  first  drew  me  to  him;  I 
mean  the  pamphlet  entitled  "  Commonsense  about  the 
War  "  which  he  issued  in  November,  1914.  It  is  the 
greatest  piece  of  journalism,  the  finest  tract  for  the 
times,  he  has  ever  written.  It  should  be  republished 
in  a  small  pocket  edition  and  presented  to  every  bud- 
ding politician  as  a  model  of  how  statesmen  ought  to 
use  their  heads  when  other  people  lose  theirs.  It  is 
the  classic  text-book  of  mental  balance  and  sobriety. 
Incidentally,  too,  it  was  the  pluckiest  thing  Shaw  ever 
did;  and,  although  unrecognized  as  such  at  the  time, 
it  typified  the  spirit  of  the  average  Englishman  who 
won  the  war  as  distinct  from  the  average  Englishman 
who  talked  twaddle  about  how  it  ought  to  be  won. 
The  sane  instinct  behind  that  pamphlet  was  the  sane 
instinct  of  the  men  who  fought  in  the  trenches  and 
on  the  deserts.  Of  course  it  gained  the  author  a 

7 


8        MODERN   MEN   AND    MUMMERS 

pretty  thorough  share  of  obloquy  at  the  time,  but  (as 
I  found  in  the  East)  jackals  invariably  howl  when 
they  scent  a  thoroughbred. 

Thus  it  was  not  till  1914  that  I  began  to  read 
Shaw's  books  seriously.  Among  modern  authors,  he 
was  the  only  first-class  pre-war  writer  in  England 
who  is  not  a  post-war  back-number.  And,  dreadful 
to  relate,  his  influence  has  developed  so  enormously 
that  there  is  every  possibility  of  his  shortly  being  ac- 
cepted as  a  classic,  even  by  the  professional  critics. 

As  everyone  knows,  Shaw's  longer  plays  and 
prefaces  are  penetrating  studies  of  prevailing  socio- 
logical conditions — all  except  three.  The  immense 
superiority  of  his  "  Three  Plays  for  Puritans  "  over 
all  his  other  works  is  so  remarkable  that  I  am  amazed 
to  find  their  peculiar  significance  passed  over  by 
every  critic  who  has  worried  himself  about  Shaw. 
And  yet  to  me  it  is  the  one  outstanding  and  immortal 
thing  about  the  man.  Of  course  he  doesn't  think  so 
himself,  but  then  he  is  his  own  worst  critic.  He  pre- 
fers the  formless  dialectic  of  "  Getting  Married  "  and 
"  Misalliance  "  to  the  deeper,  simpler  things  of  an  ear- 
lier period. 

Now  there  are  three  or  four  subjects  fundamental 
to  all  great  art,  at  the  root  of  all  philosophy,  and 
perennially  interesting  throughout  the  ages.  The 
best  work  of  all  the  greatest  artists  and  prophets  has 
concerned  itself  with  one  or  other  of  these  things.  In- 
deed that  best  work  has  often  helped  to  keep  alive  the 
propaganda,  journalism  and  pot-boilers  which  nearly 
every  great  artist  produces  alongside  of  it.  One  of 
these  things  is  Religion.  Another  is  Statecraft.  A 
third  is  Sex.  These  are  the  chief,  the  primal  topics 


BERNARD    SHAW  9 

of  the  world.  They  always  have  been  and  they  al- 
ways will  be.  In  comparison  with  them  everything 
else  is  local,  national,  and  of  momentary  value.  Any 
work  of  philosophy  or  art  that  does  not  deal  with  one 
of  these  things  cannot  be  regarded  as  of  the  slightest 
ultimate  importance.  And  according  to  the  spiritual 
significance  given  to  these  themes,  the  larger  outlook, 
the  freer  mind,  so  will  the  prophet-artist  live  in  the 
memory  of  later  ages.  In  most  works,  ancient  as  well 
as  modern,  Religion  is  degraded  to  the  level  of  a 
bigoted  sectarianism,  Statecraft  is  confused  with 
politics  and  patriotism,  and  Sex  is  debased  for  the 
glorification  of  lust  or  sentiment. 

With  regard  to  Sex,  the  trouble  is  that  in  all  dis- 
cussions on  the  subject  nearly  everybody  disagrees. 
It  seems  that  no  two  thinking  people  have  a  single 
common  idea  about  it.  So,  while  it  will  continue  to 
be  the  main  theme  for  controversialists,  it  will  never 
be  settled  to  anyone's  complete  satisfaction.  In 
"  Man  and  Superman,"  "  Getting  Married  "  and  else- 
where, Shaw  has  succeeded  in  clearing  the  ground  of 
much  sloppy  and  dirty  thinking,  but  in  this  instance 
his  emotion — always  an  intellectual  one — does  not 
reach  down  into  our  natures  deep  enough  to  gain  the 
response  we  can  easily  give  where  the  appeal  is  more 
general  than  personal. 

But  with  the  other  two  matters  he  is  on  sure 
ground.  Ail  intensely  religious  people  are  exactly 
alike.  They  are  all  outcasts,  all  despised  and  re- 
jected of  men  and  women,  all  hopelessly  unconven- 
tional, free-tongued,  fanatical,  violent,  unsentimental, 
unromantic,  careless  and  fearless  of  people  and 
things.  They  have  been  symbolized  for  ever  in  the 


10      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

character  of  the  Devil's  Disciple — the  hated  enemy  of 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  all  the  world  over,  the  sedition- 
monger  who  must  be  burnt  or  crucified,  the  man  who 
is  more  dangerous  to  the  ruling  classes  than  a  thou- 
sand Barabbases,  the  fellow  who  does  not  aspire  to 
an  upper  place  in  the  feast-room  and  who  will  not 
go  to  church  every  sabbath  in  a  top  hat  and  "  mourn- 
ing "  coat. 

"  The  Devil's  Disciple  "  was  the  first  play  to  be 
written  and  acted  in  the  English  language  with  a  big 
constructive  idea  behind  it.  It  will  remain  vital  to  us 
as  long  as  the  audiences  that  witness  it  approximate 
more  nearly  to  Dick  Dudgeon's  relations  than  to 
himself.  And  it  will  never  cease  to  be  remembered 
as  one  of  the  glorious  milestones  on  our  journey  to- 
wards the  light. 

Religion,  then,  was  the  first  eternal  theme  that 
Shaw  grappled  with.  He  has  touched  on  it  frequently 
since,  but  never  again  with  the  hand  of  a  master- 
artist,  nor  with  the  glowing  prophetic  power  he  then 
displayed.  There  are  a  dozen  other  things  in  the  play 
that  would  have  made  the  fame  of  smaller  men,  but 
the  great  central  fact  and  inspiration  about  it  is  the 
faith  and  force  of  Dudgeon.  Still,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  mention  Anderson,  parson  of  parsons,  who  ar- 
rives at  self-knowledge  through  action,  and,  being  an 
honest  man,  throws  over  his  job  of  word-purveyor  to 
the  parish;  and  General  Burgoyne,  already  by  con- 
sent a  classic  notability.  To  my  mind,  Burgoyne  is 
the  most  finished,  picturesque  and  delightful  portrait 
of  a  born  aristocrat  ever  penned.  The  only  criticism 
one  can  make  about  him  is  that  nowadays  the  sort  of 
person  who  has  his  brains  wouldn't  have  his  opinions. 


BERNARD    SHAW  11 

His  humor  suits  him  as  perfectly  as  his  clothes,  and 
his  wit  is  as  beautifully  polished  as  his  manners.  He 
is  inimitable — a  creation  of  unbounded  joy,  done  for 
pure  love.  I  would  like  to  go  on  talking  about  him 
and  his  exquisite  niche  in  the  Temple  of  Literature, 
but  I  am  awed  to  silence  by  a  remark  his  creator  once 
made  to  me :  "I  don't  take  the  slightest  interest  in 
literature  with  a  capital  L.  I  am  a  prophet,  not  a 
fancier  1 " 

Too  many  people  have  got  into  the  habit  of  read- 
ing criticisms  on  writers  instead  of  the  works  criti- 
cized. This  perhaps  accounts  for  the  utterly  wrong 
estimation  of  Shaw's  finest  achievements.  I  have  no 
wish  to  explain  why  G.B.S.  is  right,  or  why  wrong, 
in  this  or  that  controversial  matter.  (He  is  usually 
right,  by  the  way.)  I  merely  wish  to  insist  that  on 
two  or  three  occasions  he  has  written  works  that  are 
quite  outside  the  question  of  agreement  or  disagree- 
ment, that  these  works  deal  with  the  big  funda- 
mental things  of  life,  not  the  local  and  topical  things, 
and  that  he  has  given  us,  by  dramatic  characteriza- 
tion, immortal  symbols  for  them. 

I  once  asked  him  why  he  didn't  write  a  book  in 
reply  to  the  ridiculous  things  that  had  been  written 
about  him,  especially  Chesterton's  rigmarole  which  so 
thoroughly  distorted  his  outlook.  He  answered: 

"  Chesterton's  book  is  a  very  good  one  in  itself.  It 
has  little  to  do  with  me,  as  G.K.C.  has  never  made 
any  study  of  my  works,  and  in  one  place  actually 
illustrates  my  limitations  by  telling  the  world  some- 
thing I  would  have  made  one  of  the  characters  say  in 
Major  Barbara  if  I  could  have  transcended  those 
limitations:  the  joke  being  that  it  is  exactly  what  I 


12      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

did  make  the  character  say,  as  Chesterton  might  have 
found  had  he  taken  the  trouble  to  open  the  book 
(probably  he  never  possessed  a  copy)  and  refer  to 
the  passage.  But  if  you  leave  me  out  of  account, 
you  will  find,  I  think,  that  the  book  is  full  of  good 
things,  and  very  generous  into  the  bargain." 

Some  little  time  later  I  sent  him  a  pen-portrait  of 
himself  by  Frank  Harris,  and  he  wrote : 

"  Frank  Harris  cannot  really  do  a  good  Contem- 
porary Portrait  of  me  because  he  has  never  read  my 
works.  It  is  true  that  Gilbert  Chesterton  wrote  a 
very  good  book  under  the  same  disqualification;  but 
it  was  not  about  me,  and  it  was  a  sort  of  book  that 
Frank  can't  write." 

The  second  of  the  eternal  world-themes,  State- 
craft, was  superbly  treated  by  Shaw  in  "  Csesar  and 
Cleopatra,"  where  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  Eng- 
glish  dramatic  literature  a  great  statesman  and  man 
of  action  is  painted  to  the  life.  This  play  is  Shaw's 
master-work.  It  reveals  himself,  his  very  soul,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  gives  us,  in  the  character  of 
Caesar,  far  and  away  his  finest  achievement  as  an 
objective  artist. 

Shaw  has  said  all  tHat  needs  to  be  said  about 
Ceesar,  and  about  natural  greatness,  in  the  preface 
and  notes  to  his  play.  Every  word  is  incontroverti- 
ble: not  a  phrase  can  be  improved  upon.  On  that 
matter,  therefore,  I  shall  be  silent.  But  there  are 
two  points  about  this  play  that  I  wish  to  discuss 
briefly,  because  it  has  been  said  stupidly  and  insis- 
tently, by  people  who  ought  to  know  better,  that  Shaw 
"  guys  "  history  and  can't  write  poetry — which  is  sim- 
ply another  way  of  saying  he  is  not  an  artist. 


BERNARD    SHAW  13 

First,  I  suppose  everyone  will  agree  when  I  say 
that  the  main  object  of  art  is  to  be  articulate.  The 
man  who  has  something  to  express  but  can't  express 
it  is  not  an  artist.  The  man  who  conveys  his  mean- 
ing, or  expresses  himself,  most  clearly  to  the  greatest 
number  of  intelligent  or  literate  people  is  the  su- 
preme artist.  This  granted — and  there  is  really  no 
other  conceivable  postulate — Shaw  stands  on  firm 
ground,  for  he  has  received  in  his  own  lifetime  the 
verdict  of  cultured  Asia,  as  well  as  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica. (While  I  was  in  India  I  found  that  the  native 
students  could  only  converse  about  two  English 
writers:  Shakespeare  and  Shaw.)  So  much  for  art. 
That  curious  searching  after  a  means,  that  attempt 
to  formulate  impressions,  which  has  marked  and 
doomed  so  much  modern  painting  (by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  it  can  only  be  appreciated  through  alcoholic 
fumes  or  by  closing  one  eye  and  crossing  the  other) 
has  no  distant  relationship  with  living  art.  The  only 
art  worth  the  name  is  the  art  of  realism,  or,  a  better 
term  still,  naturalism.  This  is  the  art  of  Shaw,  and 
he  is  the  greatest  dramatic  exponent  of  it  since 
Shakespeare.  He  has,  besides,  gone  much  further 
than  Shakespeare,  by  adding  the  role  of  prophet  to 
that  of  artist. 

The  absurd  charge  that  Shaw  "  guys  "  history  can 
be  easily  met  with  the  question:  "Who  does  not?" 
How  is  it  possible  to  prove  that  any  fictional  or  dra- 
matic representation  of  history  is  purely  historical? 
Shaw  took  all  the  necessary  details  from  Mommsen, 
who  was  far  more  exact  than  Plutarch,  from  whom 
Shakespeare  took  his  story;  and  while  Shaw  keeps 
close  to  Mommsen  even  in  the  characterization, 


14      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

Shakespeare  left  Plutarch  on  several  important 
points.  Of  the  two,  then,  Shakespeare  "  guys  "  his- 
tory and  Shaw  is  slavishly  correct.  Suppose  Shaw 
had  suggested  that  "  ping-pong "  was  the  favorite 
relaxation  of  all  wealthy  Egyptians  in  Cleopatra's 
time.  "Absurd  and  monstrous  anachronism!"  the 
English  critics  would  have  crowed.  Yet  Shakespeare 
is  allowed  to  mention  billiards  in  "  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra "  without  bringing  on  his  head  anything  worse 
than  a  scholarly  footnote  of  deferential  expostulation, 
qualified  by  complete  absolution  on  the  ground  of 
poetic  license — because  he  wrote  in  an  archaic  lan- 
guage. But  all  this  is  beside  the  point.  An  artist 
can  only  interpret  the  actions  and  characters  in  his- 
tory by  reference  to  the  life  and  humanity  he  knows ; 
and  he  can  only  render  a  faithful  picture  of  ancient 
modernity  by  its  equivalent  in  present-day  modernity. 
For  the  world  is  always  modern  and  human  nature 
appallingly  ancient. 

Shakespeare  set  the  disastrous  fashion  of  making 
history  walk  on  stilts.  He  was  not  the  first  to  do 
so,  but  he  was  the  most  important,  and  his  example 
has  ruined  historical  drama  to  this  day.  Of  course 
Shakespeare  did  it  excellently,  made  history  stalk 
about  on  the  finest  gold  and  jeweled  stilts  obtainable, 
but  it  was  an  unfortunate  thing  to  do.  It  has  made 
writers  with  little  genius,  and  readers  as  well,  get 
hold  of  the  idea  that  kings  and  their  like  must  talk 
pompously  and  bombastically  in  pentametrical  ca- 
dences. Kings  don't  do  it  and  never  have  done  it. 
There  would  be  a  much  longer  lict  of  royal  execu- 
tions to  record  if  the  practice  had  ever  been  a  general 
one.  It  is  just  possible  that  such  a  habit  may  explain 


BERNARD   SHAW  15 

the  so-called  heartless  behavior  of  rival  monarchs  in 
pre-Jacobean  days ;  and  this  would  certainly  clear  up 
the  Malmsey  wine  mystery,  on  the  principle  that  an- 
other "  butt "  in  addition  to  what  the  gentleman  had 
already  taken  would  make  his  verse  entirely  blank. 
However,  that  is  only  a  theory.  The  thing  to  bear  in 
mind  is  that  Shakespeare's  Richard  II,  for  instance, 
is  a  creature  of  unalloyed  fancy.  He  no  more  belongs 
to  our  world  than  the  idea  of  Divine  Right,  which 
pleases  him,  belongs  to  practical  politics. 

Shaw  realized  that  the  only  way  to  explain  history, 
to  make  it  attractive  and  life-like,  was  to  write  it  in 
the  phraseology  of  his  own  time.  We  may  be  sure 
that  Csesar  had  a  colloquialism  for  "  hocus-pocus," 
just  as  some  ancient  Briton  probably  anticipated  Mrs. 
Grundy  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  and  some  early  Egyptian 
toyed  with  esthetic  ideas  or  played  with  psychical 
beliefs  or  taunted  another  (especially  when  that  other 
was  Cleopatra)  with  being  a  "  New  Woman."  Cleo- 
patra may  have  talked,  in  Shakespeare's  words,  of 
her  "  immortal  longings  " — though  I  doubt  it — but  I 
am  convinced  she  couldn't  have  kept  her  everyday 
conversation  on  that  level ;  whereas  there  can't  be  the 
least  doubt  that  she  called  her  nurse  an  old  idiot  and 
her  court  ladies  a  pack  of  silly  fools  quite  frequently. 
(Also,  having  a  son  of  my  own,  I  am  in  a  position  to 
state  quite  positively  that  Shakespeare's  Arthur  isn't 
in  the  running  with  Shaw's  Ptolemy !)  Romantic  his- 
tory makes  Cleopatra  say  "  Yare,  yare,  good  Iras," 
but  natural  history  would  probably  make  her  say 
"Now,  Iras:  hurry  up."  I  am  not  suggesting  that 
Mr.  George  Robey's  method  of  dealing  with  history 
is,  in  every  sense,  the  right  one ;  but  the  ancient  world 


undoubtedly  had  its  Robey  element  just  as  much  as 
the  modern  world.  Shaw  has  got  his  period  better 
than  any  of  your  romantic  faddists ;  and  he  has  made 
history  vital  to  us  by  spicing  it  with  all  his  modern 
charm. 

In  truth,  his  interpretation  of  history  is  the  only 
possible  one,  though  I  willingly  admit  that  he  chose  an 
ideal  subject  for  his  treatment.  His  high  critical  in- 
stinct dictated  the  choice.  This  Csesar  is  a  living, 
breathing  man.  He  has  his  great  moments  and  his 
trivial  moments,  and  he  is  always  consummately  nat- 
ural. None  of  your  romantic,  rubbishy  heroics  for 
him! — I  mean  the  kind  of  stuff  Shakespeare  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  his  ideal  Roman,  Brutus,  who  is  puffed 
out  with  self-praise  and  feeds  on  the  illusions  which 
flatter  his  public  sentiment  and  his  private  vanity. 
Until  Shaw  wrote  "  Caesar  and  Cleopatra "  and 
bodied  forth  the  synthetic,  constructive  idea,  all  the 
notable  figures  in  our  literature,  from  Hamlet  to  Dick 
Dudgeon,  were  at  heart  revolutionists.  Here  we  have 
the  first  great  statesman,  pioneer,  lawgiver,  leader  of 
men,  in  English  art.  He  is  the  Soul  of  Man  in  its 
fine  creative  moments,  in  its  aloofness,  its  solitariness, 
and  its  superiority  to  the  pettiness  and  meanness  of 
ordinary  insect-humanity.  The  miscalled  heroes  of 
an  earlier  day  were  conceived  romantically  and  manu- 
factured on  the  artificial  and  stereotyped  plan  of  as- 
suming greatness  where  its  absence  to  any  but  the 
smallest  intelligence  was  obvious.  Like  our  present- 
day  politicians,  they  were  either  "  purple  patch " 
demagogues  or  platitudinous  moralists.  It  is  true 
that  Carlyle  first  touched  the  right  key;  but  he  re- 


BERNARD   SHAW    .  17 

fused  to  see  weaknesses  and  faults  in  his  heroes,  and 
ruined  his  portraits  by  over-emphasis. 

It  is  as  prophet-artist  that  Shaw  reigns  supreme. 
He  is  the  most  noteworthy  figure  among  all  our  dra- 
matists except  the  author  of  "  Hamlet,"  and  his  mes- 
sage is  obviously  of  greater  moment  than  by  the  na- 
ture of  the  case  Shakespeare's  could  ever  have  been. 
In  the  "  Three  Plays  for  Puritans,"  where  he  gave  us 
the  pith  and  marrow  of  his  unmatchable  faculties,  and 
particularly  in  "  Csesar  and  Cleopatra,"  he  reveals 
himself  as  a  poet  of  rare  spiritual  beauty  and  ex- 
altation. One  has  only  to  read  Caesar's  first  speech 
to  realize  that.  "  A  man,"  says  Scott,  "  may  be  a  poet 
without  measuring  spondees  and  dactyls  like  the  an- 
cients, or  clashing  the  ends  of  lines  into  rime  like  the 
moderns,  as  one  may  be  an  architect  though  unable 
to  labor  like  a  stonemason."  Caesar  is  just  as  much 
a  creature  of  poetry  and  passion  as  he  is  the  creation 
of  the  sanest,  most  evenly  balanced  mind  that  ever 
took  to  letters  for  a  living.  He  is  inspired  in  the  rare 
and  real  sense  with  a  mission — a  mission  of  warning 
and  a  mission  of  hope.  In  magical  sentences  of  deep 
poetic  insight,  he  reaches  time  after  time  the  very 
heart-core  of  prophecy.  He  says  the  sort  of  things 
that  stagger  one  with  the  reflection  that  the  world 
has  had  to  wait  a  few  thousand  years  to  hear  them. 
Having  waited  all  that  time,  it  will  doubtless  be  con- 
tent to  wait  another  century  or  two  before  attempting 
to  grasp  their  significance.  And  yet  perhaps  not. 
After  all,  the  age  of  the  Puritans  in  England  followed 
as  a  natural  consequence  a  popular  version  of  the 
Bible.  Superstitions  were  shattered  by  the  pure  and 


18      MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

naked  word.  Ritual  gave  place  to  realism,  tokens  to 
truths,  symbols  to  sermons.  A  light  in  the  heart  ex- 
tinguished the  lights  on  the  altar.  Well,  these  "  Plays 
for  Puritans  "  might  truly  be  called  the  Bible  of  the 
twentieth  century — only  (and  one  cannot  be  too 
thankful  for  it)  a  Bible  with  humor,  which  I  sincerely 
hope  the  next  age  of  idol-breakers  will  bear  in  mind! 
"  Captain  Brassbound's  Conversion,"  though  it 
stands  head  and  shoulders  above  Shaw's  controversial 
plays  in  the  strength,  simplicity  and  universality  of 
its  appeal,  is  nevertheless  a  slight  production  in  com- 
parison with  the  other  two  works  in  this  volume.  It 
is  just  a  sermon;  but  it  is  a  sermon  by  the  most  de- 
lightful of  preachers,  a  sermon  that  does  not  send  one 
to  sleep.  It  not  only  enforces  the  finer  elements  in 
Christianity  but  explains  why  the  old  Mosaic  ideas 
are  stupid  and  hurtful,  which  Jesus  omitted  to  do. 
Apart  from  its  moral,  however,  the  play  is  chiefly 
memorable  for  one  thing,  and  we  cannot  be  too  grate- 
ful for  the  enduring  charm  and  beauty  of  the  only 
quite  lovable  woman  in  the  Shavian  portrait  gallery. 
No  such  gracious  tribute  to  the  other  sex  was  ever 
paid  by  a  man.  It  is  an  exquisite  creation;  and  if 
Shaw  has  failed — as  who  has  not  failed? — to  speak 
the  perfect  reconciling  word  on  the  subject  of  sex, 
he  has  at  any  rate  done  the  next  best  thing.  Lady 
Cecily  Waynflete  is  the  most  enchanting,  irresistible 
thing  the  art  of  realism  has  produced.  She  is  more 
than  that.  She  is  a  positive  character,  constructive  in 
the  Casarian  sense:  that  is  to  say,  she  accepts  life  as 
it  is  and  tries  to  make  the  best  of  it — she  doesn't  per- 
petually whine  that  life  is  not  what  she  would  like  it 
to  be,  and  spend  her  own  existence  in  railing  at  it. 


BERNARD   SHAW  19 

She  is,  in  fact,  the  creator  and  shield,  the  eternal 

Mother,  in  woman. 

***** 

Three  things  struck  me  when  I  first  read  Shaw's 
works  through  without  a  break.  First,  that  he  had 
not  dealt  with  law  as  comprehensively  as  the  other 
big  social  matters.  Second,  that  he  had  wasted  far 
too  much  of  his  time  in  turning  out  pot-boilers. 
Third,  that  his  work  spread  over  too  great  a  field  for 
easy  assimilation  by  the  average  reader.  I  wrote  to 
him  on  these  lines;  but  he  wouldn't  have  it  at  any 
price.  Here  is  his  answer: 

"  If  you  won't  read  my  works  by  degrees,  you 
must  at  least  ask  questions  about  them  by  degrees. 
How  can  I  answer  for  my  whole  life  to  you  between 
one  bit  of  crowded  work  and  another?  You  are 
worse  than  the  Recording  Angel. 

"  Hastily,  I  have  said  a  good  deal  about  judges 
and  the  criminal  law  in  the  course  of  my  writings; 
and  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  anything  to  add.  I 
wish  I  had  taken  law  up  as  a  profession,  as  it  is  a 
subject  that  interests  me  very  strongly;  but  it  is  too 
late  now,  and  I  have  said  my  say  as  to  the  general 
human  aspect  of  it. 

"  I  do  not  waste  my  time  writing  pot-boilers :  the 
pot  must  be  boiled,  and  even  my  pot  au  feu  has  some 
chunks  of  fresh  meat  in  it. 

*  The  Golden  Treasury  is  no  doubt  needed,  but  I 
have  to  take  my  work  as  it  comes  and  other  people 
must  do  the  same.  There  is  no  royal  road  to  Shavian- 
ism.  My  wife  has  made  a  book  of  '  selected  passages  ' 
—but  it  is  no  use.  The  mess  of  plays,  prefaces,  tracts 
and  articles  from  which  my  philosophy  has  to  be  ex- 


20      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

traded  is  not  only  the  form  imposed  by  circumstances, 
but  the  only  form  in  which  it  can  be  properly  as- 
similated. I  have  no  time  to  boil  myself  down;  and 
anyhow  I  could  not  do  so  and  preserve  all  the  neces- 
sary nutriment  and  the  flavoring  on  which  the  digesti- 
bility depends." 

"  A  most  amusing  man,  but  of  course  you  can't 
take  him  seriously."  Thus  the  majority  of  his  con- 
temporaries on  Bernard  Shaw.  And  every  time  I 
hear  it  I  want  to  tear  the  speaker's  hair  out,  slowly, 
by  the  roots.  I  have  often  said  that  if  Jesus  appeared 
in  the  world  to-day,  everybody  would  roar  with 
laughter  at  his  paradoxes  and  call  him  a  very  funny 
fellow  with  an  irresistibly  quaint  way  of  putting 
things.  He  might  eventually,  through  journalistic 
influence,  receive  the  honor  of  imprisonment — per- 
haps the  highest  honor  we,  as  a  nation,  are  able  to 
confer — but  in  all  probability  some  of  his  crowning 
absurdities  (e.g.  "  He  that  shall  save  his  life  shall 
lose  it ")  would  keep  him  out  of  jail,  much  as  Shaw 
is  kept  out  of  it,  by  gaining  him  the  reputation  of  a 
jester.  The  ruling  classes  at  the  time  of  Jesus  took 
matters  rather  seriously  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  and 
behaved,  as  is  usual  with  humanity,  like  wolves  when 
a  suitable  opportunity  presented  itself.  We,  on  the 
contrary,  without  sacrificing  our  wolf-like  qualities, 
are  closer  akin  to  hyenas:  anything  will  furnish  us 
with  an  excuse  to  laugh.  When  Shaw  strikes  a  note 
of  truly  heartrending  tragedy,  we  explode  with 
laughter  and  exclaim:  "  How  screamingly  funny!  " 

Nowadays  we  are  dreadfully  afraid  of  superlatives. 
That's  because  we  don't  know  our  own  minds.  In 
all  the  best  criticism  it  is  only  the  superlative  that 


BERNARD   SHAW  21 

matters.  But  our  self-styled  critics  don't  write  criti- 
cisms: they  write  reviews.  And  in  reviews  it  is  only 
the  comparative  that  matters.  True,  I  have  dragged 
Shakespeare  into  this  essay  several  times,  but  solely 
because  he  is  so  generally  regarded  as  our  final 
standard,  our  convention,  in  art.  Shakespeare  did 
one  thing  that  no  one  will  ever  have  the  chance  of 
doing  again.  He  took  the  rough,  uncouth  English 
language  and  molded  it  into  the  most  gorgeous,  flexi- 
ble medium  of  expression  in  the  world.  That  is  his 
grand  achievement ;  and  we  may  well  stare  at  it,  won- 
der-stricken. I  suggest  to  our  modern  poets  that  they 
will  save  a  great  deal  of  valuable  time  if  they  give 
up  trying  to  copy  his  method.  We  have  a  different 
medium  now;  and  the  world  wants  to  be  spoken  to 
in  a  language  it  can  understand.  Shaw  has  spoken 
to  it  in  that  language,  and  because  he  has  spoken 
simply,  without  complexity,  and  with  none  of  the 
drossy  illusions  of  the  romancists,  the  sentimental 
critics  beat  their  breasts  and  call  on  the  various  Baals 
of  their  idolatry  in  the  proper  and  orthodox  manner 
employed  by  all  worshipers  of  the  obsolete.  But  as 
their  gods  have  not  heard  them,  while  Shaw's  circula- 
tion continues  to  increase,  I  can  only  hope  that  future 
master-minds  will  not  be  utterly  cast  down  when  the 
critics  of  their  day  trot  out  the  awful,  and  by  that 
time  venerable,  works  of  Bernard  Shaw  as  the  final 

word  in  all  things  pertaining  to  faith  and  godliness. 

***** 

Directly  I  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the 
*  Three  Plays  for  Puritans  "  we  had  the  very  quint- 
essence of  Shaw,  I  was  all  eagerness  to  know  every- 
thing there  was  to  be  known  about  them.  Shaw,  very 


22      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

generously,  pandered  to  my  curiosity  and  wrote  me 
a  wonderful  letter,  which  is  far  too  good  to  keep  to 
myself.  What  a  pity  no  one  prevailed  upon  Shake- 
speare to  write  an  account  of  his  masterpieces  in  this 
delightfully  personal  manner!  I  would  willingly 
sacrifice  half  his  plays  for  a  letter  about  "  Hamlet " 
as  good  as  this  one  of  Shaw's  about  the  Puritan 
plays:— 

"  Why  did  it  need  a  colossal  war  to  make  people 
read  my  books?  The  whole  army  seems  to  do  noth- 
ing else,  except  when  it  lays  down  the  book  to  fire 
a  perfunctory  shot  at  Jerry  or  to  write  me  a  letter 
asking  me  what  I  meant  by  it. 

"  Plays  for  Puritans  are  about  as  old  as  the  cen- 
tury; and  I  do  not  remember  very  much  about  them. 
I  wrote  The  Devil's  Disciple  for  William  Terriss, 
then  a  pet  melodramatic  hero  at  the  Adelphi,  which 
was  the  London  home  of  melodrama.  He  and  Jessie 
Millward  and  Harry  Nicholls  were  London  institu- 
tions; and  they  did  their  work  extremely  well.  Ter- 
riss wanted  to  tour  the  world  as  a  star.  He  asked  me 
to  collaborate  with  him  in  a  play,  the  plot  to  be  sup- 
plied by  him.  It  was  more  than  a  plot:  it  was  all  the 
plots  of  all  the  melodramas  he  had  ever  played  in. 
At  the  end  of  every  act  he  was  dragged  away  to  penal 
servitude  through  the  treachery  of  the  beautiful  devil 
who  was  the  villainess  of  the  piece ;  and  he  turned  up 
in  the  next  as  fresh  as  paint  without  an  attempt  to 
explain  this  happy  change  in  his  fortune.  I  told  him 
that  it  would  be  spendid  for  the  Adelphi,  but  that  in 
foreign  cities,  where  they  would  have  their  own  par- 
ticular native  Terriss,  they  would  not  stand  melo- 
drama from  him,  but  would  expect  something  like 


BERNARD   SHAW  23 

Hamlet.  He  put  his  plot  in  the  fire  (having  several 
typed  copies  in  his  desk)  and  said:  '  Mr.  Shaw,  you 
are  right.' 

"  So  I  wrote  The  Devil's  Disciple  for  him,  and 
read  it  to  him  in  Jessie  Millward's  flat.  He  listened 
in  deep  perplexity  until  I  had  nearly  finished  the  first 
act,  when  he  said  '  Excuse  my  interrupting  you;  but 
is  this  an  interior? '  (Melodramas  usually  begin  on 
the  village  green.)  I  said  it  was.  '  Right,'  he  said, 
'  now  I  have  it.  Go  on.  You  won't  mind  my  inter- 
rupting you?  ' 

"  I  went  on.  When  I  had  read  about  two  pages 
of  the  second  act,  he  said,  with  despair  in  his  face, 
*  Sorry  to  interrupt  you  again ;  but  is  this  an  interior? ' 
I  said  it  was;  and  he  assured  me  that  I  had  now  set 
his  mind  completely  at  rest,  and  would  I  excuse  him 
for  interrupting  me,  and  fire  away.  I  fired  away. 
When  the  barrage  had  lasted  two  minutes  longer  he 
had  fallen  into  a  coma  so  profound  that  Jessie  and 
I  had  to  carry  him  into  the  next  room  and  give  him 
some  strong  tea  before  he  was  thoroughly  awake  and 
ashamed  of  the  failure  of  his  effort  to  live  up  to  the 
higher  drama. 

"  Nothing  more  passed  between  us  until  he  heard 
that  Richard  Mansfield  had  at  last  conquered  New 
York  with  a  tremendously  successful  melodrama,  and 
that  this  was  The  Devil's  Disciple.  He  sent  for  me 
hastily  to  discuss  business  with  him;  but  before  the 
appointment  came  off  he  was  stabbed  by  a  lunatic  at 
the  stage  door  of  the  Adelphi,  which,  in  its  old  aspect 
as  a  temple  of  melodrama,  may  be  said  to  have  per- 
ished with  him. 

'*  The  only  other  thing  I  remember  about  the  play 


24      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

is  that  I  wrote  most  of  it  sitting  on  the  end  of  a  table 
in  the  studio  of  a  young  artist  named  Nellie  Heath, 
who  was  painting  a  portrait  of  me. 

"  The  play  was  written  round  the  scene  of  Dick's 
arrest,  which  had  always  been  floating  in  my  head  as 
a  situation  for  a  play.  Mrs.  Dudgeon  is  a  variation 
on  Dickens's  Mrs.  Clennam. 

"  I  wrote  Ca3sar  and  Cleopatra  for  Forbes-Robert- 
son and  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell  when  they  were  play- 
ing together.  But  it  was  not  played  by  him  until  they 
had  gone  their  several  professional  ways;  and  Cleo- 
patra was  '  created '  by  Gertrude  Elliott,  who  had 
already  played  in  The  Devil's  Disciple  with  Robert- 
son, and  is  now  Lady  Forbes-Robertson.  It  is  what 
Shakespeare  called  a  history:  that  is,  a  chronicle  play; 
and  I  took  the  chronicle  without  alteration  from 
Mommsen.  I  read  a  lot  of  other  stuff,  from  Plutarch, 
who  hated  Caesar,  to  Warde-Fowler ;  but  I  found  that 
Mommsen  had  conceived  Ca?sar  as  I  wished  to  present 
him,  and  that  he  told  the  story  of  the  visit  to  Egypt 
like  a  man  who  believed  in  it,  which  many  historians 
don't.  I  stuck  nearly  as  closely  to  him  as  Shakespeare 
did  to  Plutarch  or  Holinshed.  I  infer  from  Goethe's 
saying  that  the  assassination  of  Caesar  was  the  worst 
crime  in  history  that  he  also  saw  Caesar  in  the 
Mommsen-Shaw  light.  Although  I  was  forty-four 
or  thereabouts  when  I  wrote  the  play,  I  now  think  I 
was  a  trifle  too  young  for  the  job;  but  it  was  not  bad 
for  a  juvenile  effort. 

"  It  may  interest  you,  now  that  you  are  enduring 
the  discomforts  and  terrors  of  active  service,  to  know 
that  when  I  wrote  Caesar  I  was  stumbling  about  on 
crutches  with  a  necrosed  bone  in  my  foot  that  every- 


BERNARD    SHAW  25 

body  believed  would  turn  cancerous  and  finish  me. 
It  had  been  brought  on  by  an  accident  occurring  at 
the  moment  when  I  was  plunging  into  one  of  those 
break-downs  in  middle  life  which  killed  Schiller  and 
very  nearly  killed  Goethe,  and  which  have  led  to  the 
saying  that  every  busy  man  should  go  to  bed  for  a 
year  when  he  is  forty.  In  trying  to  come  downstairs 
on  crutches  before  I  was  used  to  them  I  shot  myself 
into  empty  space  and  fell  right  down  through  the 
house  on  to  the  flags,  complicating  the  useless  foot 
with  a  broken  arm.  It  was  in  this  condition  that  I 
wrote  Ca?sar  and  Cleopatra;  but  I  cannot  see  any 
mark  of  it  on  the  play.  I  remember  lying  on  the  top 
of  a  cliff  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  with  my  crutches  in  the 
grass  beside  me,  and  writing  the  lines 

The  white  upon  the  blue  above 
Is  purple  on  the  green  below 

as  a  simple  memorandum  of  what  I  saw  as  I  looked 
from  the  cliff.  The  Sphinx  scene  was  suggested  by 
a  French  picture  of  the  Flight  into  Egypt.  I  never 
can  remember  the  painter's  name ;  but  the  engraving, 
which  I  saw  in  a  shop  window  when  I  was  a  boy,  of 
the  Virgin  and  child  asleep  in  the  lap  of  a  colossal 
Sphinx  staring  over  a  desert,  so  intensely  still  that 
the  smoke  of  Joseph's  fire  close  by  went  straight  up 
like  a  stick,  remained  in  the  rummage  basket  of  my 
memory  for  thirty  years  before  I  took  it  out  and  ex- 
ploited it  on  the  stage. 

"  Captain  Brassbound's  Conversion,  which,  like  my 
Blanco  Posnet,  is  an  excellent  religious  tract,  was 
written  for  Ellen  Terry.  When  her  first  grandchild 
was  born  Ellen  said  that  nobody  would  ever  write  a 


26      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

play  for  her  now  she  was  a  grandmother.  I  said  I 
would ;  and  Brassbound  was  the  result.  She  tried  to 
induce  Irving  to  produce  the  play.  But  he  put  his 
finger  on  the  scene  where  Brassbound,  after  figuring 
through  the  first  two  acts  as  a  picturesque  seaman, 
comes  in  in  a  frock  coat  and  top  hat;  and  he  said, 
'  Shaw  put  that  in  to  get  me  laughed  at.'  He  was 
perfectly  right ;  and  the  stroke  was  so  successful  that 
when  Laurence  Irving  '  created '  the  part  the  audi- 
ence laughed  for  two  solid  minutes  at  him  at  this 
point.  Years  afterwards  Ellen  played  it,  under  the 
Vedrenne-Barker  management  at  the  Court  Theatre, 
and  then  made  her  farewell  tour  through  the  United 
States  in  it. 

"  I  wanted  Ada  Rehan  to  play  it  in  America;  and 
an  agent  sent  her  the  book.  She  was  furious  at  being 
offered  a  thing  that  was  not  a  play  at  all,  and  in 
which  the  man,  she  thought,  had  the  best  part.  Years 
later,  when  I  read  it  to  her  (not  being  supposed  to 
know  anything  about  this  early  miscarriage),  it  threw 
her  into  a  condition  of  extraordinary  excitement,  in 
which  she  exclaimed  incoherently  that  actresses  of  her 
generation  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  they  had 
nothing  to  do  but  be  beautiful,  and  that  here  was 
something  quite  new,  quite  different.  She  declared 
that  she  must  play  it.  But  the  illness  which  finally 
killed  her  intervened  and  ended  her  stage  career.  '  I 
wish  I  dare  play,'  she  said,  '  but  I  cannot :  I  never 
know  when  I  shall  flop.'  'Flop  away,'  I  said:  'we 
can  drop  the  curtain  till  you  get  up  again.'  '  Oh,  I 
wish  I  could,'  she  said.  But  she  never  did. 

"  Now  that  even  the  old  professionals  who  still  find 
it  difficult  to  admit  that  my  plays  are  plays  have 


BERNARD    SHAW  27 

adopted  it  as  an  article  of  faith  that  I  write  very  good 
parts,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  so  many  actors  and 
actresses  to  whom  I  offered  parts  that  were  first-rate 
chances  for  them,  refused  them  as  absurd  and  un- 
dramatic.  Omitting  four  or  five  names  of  artists  who, 
being  still  alive,  might  fancy  that  I  am  reproaching 
them,  Ada  Rehan,  Irving,  Tree,  Mansfield,  Wynd- 
ham,  Terriss,  Alexander,  Fanny  Coleman,  all  landed 
themselves  in  this  way.  They  were  like  the  old 
Italian  singers  confronted  with  Wagner. 

"  As  to  the  ideas  in  the  plays,  they  are  not  local  or 

temporal:  they  were  born  in  me,  I  suppose." 

***** 

I  want  to  give  a  brief  idea  of  the  man  behind  these 
works.  It  is  impossible  to  convey  a  true  impression 
of  his  vivid  charm.  Anything  in  the  nature  of 
nervousness  with  him  is  quite  out  of  the  question. 
He  puts  one  completely  at  ease  the  moment  he  meets 
one.  He  has  more  than  his  share  of  vitality.  He  is 
very  jerky  in  movement,  though  his  gestures  are 
frank,  full  and  free.  As  he  sits  talking,  he  perpetu- 
ally crosses,  uncrosses  and  recrosses  his  legs,  shoves 
his  hands  into  his  pockets,  pulls  them  out  again,  by 
turns  sits  back  and  then  up  in  his  chair,  bends  for- 
wrd,  stretches  backwards  with  feet  right  out  to  the 
full  length  of  his  body — altogether  leaving  the  impres- 
sion that  he  can't  sit  still  for  twenty  consecutive  sec- 
onds if  his  life  were  to  be  forfeit  for  not  doing  so. 
He  is  a  full  six  feet  in  height,  very  spare  in  frame, 
with  white  hair  and  benrd — the  latter  narrowing  to- 
wards the  tip — an  exceedingly  high  forehead,  head  flat 
at  the  back,  and  bristling  white  mustache.  A  most 
expressive,  though  not  actually  mobile,  face,  very 


28      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

pleasant  if  at  times  the  least  bit  sardonic,  very  much 
alive.  Like  his  prose,  his  conversation  is  emphatic, 
though  it  is  relieved  by  a  soft,  charming  voice  and  a 
slight,  fascinating  Irish  brogue.  He  talks  quickly, 
with  now  and  then  a  sort  of  half -laugh,  and  his  light 
eyes  help  to  complete  that  sense  of  supreme  pleasant- 
ness about  his  whole  personality  which  is  quite  incom- 
municable by  picture  or  pen.  His  humor  is  irresisti- 
ble, and  his  manner  is  so  winning  that  an  audience 
will  rock  with  laughter  in  sheer  delight  at  being  in- 
sulted by  him  so  charmingly.  At  rehearsal,  too,  he 
puts  his  artists  through  their  paces  in  a  way  that 
would  disarm  and  pacify  the  grumpiest  of  dyspeptics! 

I  find  it  difficult  to  speak  of  the  man  himself  with- 
out covering  my  page  with  exclamation  marks.  As  a 
member-of  society,  he  is  apparently  a  bundle  of  all  the 
virtues  and  none  of  the  vices.  And  yet  it  is  a  mistake 
to  imagine  anyone,  even  Shaw,  as  perfect.  As  I  see 
him,  he  has  one  very  serious,  almost  disabling,  defect ; 
and  one  unexampled,  superman-like  virtue.  The  first 
is  due  to  his  unnatural  seriousness;  the  second  is  due 
to  his  unfailing  kindliness.  Fortunately  I  can  give 
illuminative  examples  of  both. 

His  defect  can  be  summarized  very  clearly  in  the 
fact  that  he  once  took  the  trouble  to  criticize  that 
masterpiece  of  merriment,  "  The  Importance  of  being 
Earnest,"  calling  it  sinister  and  heartless.  Now  the 
man  who  can  sit  down  and  seriously  diagnose  such  a 
work  has  got  something  the  matter  with  him.  It  is 
a  sort  of  literary  measles,  and  in  Shaw's  case  it  seems 
to  be  chronic.  He  is  able  to  enjoy  the  lighter  things, 
just  as  the  invalid  enjoys  chicken  and  grapes,  but  he 
can't  forget  the  heavier  things,  any  more  than  the 


BERNARD    SHAW  29 

invalid  forgets  the  measles.  He  doesn't  enjoy  for 
the  sake  of  enjoyment;  he  appears  to  enjoy  for  the 
sake  of  sorrow. 

Shaw's  peculiar  virtue  lies  in  his  absolute  freedom 
from  envy,  pettiness  and  vanity.  Practically  all  the 
worries  and  calamities  that  afflict  nations  and  individ- 
uals spring  from  these  three  things.  I  am  in  a  posi- 
tion to  record  a  noble  instance  of  Shaw's  immunity 
from  the  ills  that  beset  the  rest  of  humanity,  even,  its 
leaders,  by  placing  his  conduct  side  by  side  with  that 
of  two  of  his  greatest  contemporaries — and  as  many 
others  as  you  like  to  mention. 

Sometime  during  1916,  when  all  the  world  (in- 
cluding myself)  was  in  khaki,  Frank  Harris  sent  me 
several  copies  of  a  book  he  had  just  issued  in  Amer- 
ica. It  was  his  "  Life  of  Oscar  Wilde."  Previous  to 
this  Harris  had  delivered,  in  the  preface  to  his  play 
on  Shakespeare,  a  fairly  snorting  and,  I  believe,  quite 
unjust  attack  on  Shaw.  Anyone  but  Shaw  would 
have  been  furious  about  it;  but  Shaw  had  turned  the 
other  cheek  and  written  by  way  of  reply  a  magnificent 
eulogy  of  Harris  in  his  preface  to  "  The  Dark  Lady 
of  the  Sonnets." 

Shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  war  Harris  went  to 
America  and  promptly  wrote  some  absurd  articles 
about  Shaw,  which  he  called  a  "  portrait."  I  cannot 
account  for  his  action  except  on  the  rather  miserable 
ground  that  the  American  public  like  reading  stupid 
things  about  eminent  people,  and  Harris  was  in  fairly 
low  water  at  the  time. 

Anyhow,  the  books  turned  up  and  Harris  asked  me 
to  send  copies  to  various  famous  people  over  here  and 
get  their  opinions  on  it.  All  the  people  who  weren't 


30      MODERN   MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

in  khaki  at  the  time  (I  mean  of  course  the  over- 
military-age  crowd)  loathed  Harris  like  poison  be- 
cause he  was  repeating  opinions  he  had  always  pro- 
fessed and  constantly  stated  during  the  twenty  odd 
years  he  had  spent  in  England  before  the  war  broke 
out.  These  people,  you  see,  had  just  discovered  how 
very  obnoxious  a  person  can  be  who  holds  to  his  opin- 
ions through  thick  and  thin.  Well,  I  received  quite 
a  lot  of  insults  and  cold  shoulders  in  my  efforts  on 
Harris's  behalf.  Among  others,  Mr.  Joseph  Conrad 
wrote  in  the  third  person  (which  until  then  I  had 
assumed  was  the  right  only  of  monarchs  and  editors, 
with  the  possible  alternative  on  state  occasions  of  the 
first  person  plural)  returning  the  book.  He  informed 
me  that  he  was  glad  of  having  the  opportunity  to  send 
back  the  work  which  reached  him  some  time  ago. 
"  The  subject  does  not  interest  him  and  with  the 
writer  he  is  out  of  sympathy  on  this  and  on  more  seri- 
ous matters."  Fancy  that  now! 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  was  more  explicit,  and,  which  was 
very  nice  of  him,  called  me  "  Dear  Sir  "  —with  capi- 
tals, just  like  that!  He  went  on  to  thank  me  for  the 
copy  of  Frank  Harris's  book  on  Wilde  and  for  the 
magazine  containing  his  "  lies  about  poor  old  W — 

L and  Conrad."    Neither  altered  his  opinion  of 

Mr.  Harris  in  the  slightest  degree.  (Note  that 
"  Mr."!)  He  thought  my  letter  rather  impertinent 
but  quite  well  meaning.  He  knew  Harris.  .  .  .  My 
letter,  by  the  way,  was  simply  an,  urgent  request  that 
he  should  talk  and  write  about  the  book. 

I  was  stung  several  times  in  the  hornet's  nest  I 
had  thus  put  my  head  into,  and  was  forced  to  shed 


BERNARD    SHAW  31 

several  cherished  illusions  relative  to  our  noble  army 
of  artist-thinkers. 

So  I  poured  my  woes  out  to  Shaw  in  a  letter,  to 
which  he  replied:  "  Frank's  present  tack  of  describing 
to  the  Americans  how  he  discovered  Wells,  Kipling, 
'Conrad,  myself,  and  other  neglected  geniuses,  and 
rescued  them  from  obscurity,  is  no  doubt  quite  sin- 
cere; for  he  probably  believes  that  America  was  dis- 
covered at  the  moment  when  he  first  landed  there; 
but  if  these  writers  refuse  to  take  it  good-humoredly 
as  I  do,  you  cannot  reasonably  quarrel  with  them  on 
that  account." 

The  way  Shaw  himself  hit  back  at  Harris,  with 
infinitely  greater  provocation  than  the  others,  was  as 
follows :  he  sat  down,  wrote  a  letter  about  his  personal 
meetings  with  Wilde  and  about  Harris's  book,  and 
then,  discovering  that  the  letter  was  almost  as  long 
as  one  of  the  prefaces  to  his  own  plays,  calmly  in- 
formed Harris  that  he  could,  if  he  liked,  use  it  as  an 
appendix  to  any  future  edition  of  the  work  he  de- 
cided to  publish.  This  astounding  act  of  generosity, 
unique  in  literary  history  if  all  the  circumstances  are 
carefully  taken  into  account,  helped  Harris  to  an  ex- 
ceptional public  prestige  in  the  States,  put  him  firmly 
on  his  legs,  and  sent  his  book  into  as  many  editions  as 
even  popular  authors  only  occasionally  dream  about 

in  their  most  sanguine  moments. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I  owe  an  apology  to  Bernard  Shaw,  because  he  told 
me  not  to  waste  my  time  writing  about  him.  But  I 
couldn't  help  it.  It  had  to  be  done.  I  had  been 
brooding  on  the  matter  for  several  years,  and  I  knew 


32      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

I  wouldn't  be  happy  until  it  was  over  and  finished 
with.  But  as  a  very  sound  guide  to  future  would-be 
Shavians  or  would-be  anyone  else,  I  shall  here  quote 
his  excellent  advice: 

"  Neither  I  nor  any  man  of  my  generation  takes 
the  smallest  interest  in  you,  or  can  be  anything  to  you 
but  a  snare.  You  must  deal  with  the  world  as  you 
find  it,  not  as  I  found  it.  Of  all  literary  bores  and 
failures  the  most  hopeless  are  the  Don  Quixotes  who 
make  Dulcirieas  of  their  pet  authors  and  rush  about 
breaking  lances  for  them  instead  of  doing  honest 
original  work.  What  do  you  suppose  I  should  have 
been  if  I  had  spent  my  life  pestering  people  about 
Ruskin  and  Carlyle,  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer,  in- 
stead of  about  Shaw?  It  is  true  that  I  wrote  books 
about  Wagner  and  Ibsen ;  but  they  were  virtually  my 
contemporaries;  and  what  I  called  attention  to  was 
not  their  music-dramas  and  plays,  but  a  modern 
philosophy  of  life  of  which  they,  like  myself,  were 
exponents. 

'  Your  bread  and  butter  will  never  be  safe  until,  in 
the  language  of  the  trench  and  the  home,  you  allude 
to  me  contemptuously  as  '  a  -  -  old  back  number.' 
Don't  talk  about  me,  or  write  about  me,  or  about 
Frank  Harris,  or  about  anybody  over  forty  except 
the  dead,  and  not  too  much  about  them. 

"  I  really  tremble  for  your  future  when  I  find  you 
still  going  on  exactly  as  you  did  before  you  got  torn 
up  by  the  roots  and  planted  in  the  city  of  Haroun  al 
Raschid." 


II 

SIR  HERBERT  TREE 

AT  the  age  of  eighteen  I  was  literally  hypnotized  by 
Tree.  His  theater  seemed  to  me  a  veritable  temple 
of  all  the  arts,  and  I  used  to  dream  over  the  hours 
spent  there.  As  for  the  man  himself,  I  thought  him 
the  most  wonderful  thing  that  had  ever  happened. 
Imagine,  then,  the  trepidation  with  which  I  lingered 
around  a  certain  pillar  box  in  Hampstead,  a  letter  in 
my  hand  which  I  dared  not  post,  stamped,  and  ad- 
dressed to  H.  Beerbohm  Tree  Esq.,  His  Majesty's 
Theatre,  Haymarket,  S.W.  In  it  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  let  me  "  walk  on  "  in  one  of  his  productions. 
But  I  had  no  spur  to  prick  the  sides  of  my  intent. 
The  letter  was  never  posted.  An  unexpected  legacy 
relieved  me  from  the  drudgery  of  city  life,  and  I 
roamed  for  a  year  or  two.  Mexico,  the  United  States, 
Canada  and  the  West  Indies  between  them  relieved 
me  of  my  legacy,  and  then  for  the  first  time  I  touched 
the  hem  of  my  hero's  costume. 

I  was  working,  or  pretending  to  work,  in  Brighton, 
and  the  idea  seized  me  that  I  would  like  to  see  Tree's 
Hamlet  again,  after  a  long  interval,  during  one  of 
his  annual  festivals.  So  I  wired  to  him:  "  Can  you 
play  Hamlet  in  a  business-like  manner  next  Thursday 
so  as  to  enable  me  to  catch  midnight  train  from  Vic- 
toria? "  His  answer  came  back:  "  Cannot  alter  my 
conception  of  the  part  to  fit  midnight  train  but  will 

33 


34      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

cut  a  scene  if  you'll  run  to  Victoria."  I  agreed  to 
run  and  he  to  cut — someone  else's  scene,  of  course. 

After  that  I  met  him.  It  was  during  his  famous 
production  of  "  Henry  VIII."  I  wrote  to  say  I 
wanted  to  begin  my  stage  career  under  his  banner. 
He  replied:  "  Come  and  see  me,  but  don't  be  too 
optimistic.  You  should  have  independent  means  or 
relations  with  Court  Circles  to  be  successful  on  the 
stage  nowadays.  If  you  have  the  former,  why  go  on 
the  stage?  If  the  latter,  the  kings  and  queens  of  real 
life  should  satisfy  you;  though  I  admit  we  can  give 
you  the  romantic  article  better  than  they,  because  a 
cardboard  crown  is  more  artistic  than  a  top  hat." 

Thus  it  came  about  that  I  was  ushered  into  the 
mighty  presence  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  one  night  during 
the  performance  of  "  Henry  VIII."  It  was  an  im- 
mense moment  for  me.  Wolsey- Tree  was  sitting  at 
the  desk  in  his  outer  dressing-room  as  I  entered.  He 
rose,  shook  hands,  said  "  How  do  you  do?  Take  a 
seat,"  and  sat  down  again.  I  took  a  seat.  He  leaned 
back  in  his,  and  stared  hard  at  me  for  about  two 
minutes  without  speaking.  I  became  fretful.  Sud- 
denly he  said:  "Don't  bite  your  nails.  It's  a  sign 
of  mental  stagnation."  I  ventured  a  remark  about 
one  of  the  pictures  in  his  room.  He  apparently  didn't 
hear  me  speak.  Another  long  silence.  Then  he  broke 
out:  "Don't  suck  your  thumb.  It  signifies  lack  of 
stamina."  This  rather  irritated  me.  I  asked  whether 
he  would  like  to  write  me  a.  prescription?  He  imme- 
diately took  up  his  pen  and  wrote  some  words  on  a 
slip  of  paper.  Then  he  rose,  handed  me  the  paper, 
murmured  "  Come  again  after  the  next  act,"  took  me 
a  few  steps  along  the  corridor  outside  his  room,  and 


SIR    HERBERT    TREE  35 

pushed  me  through  a  door  that  opened  into  the  dress 
circle.    I  looked  at  the  paper  and  read  the  following: 

DISEASE:  Want  of  philosophic  calm,  typically  modern. 
CUKE  :  One  performance  of  Henry  VIII,  to  be  taken  weekly. 

H.  B.  T. 

At  the  end  of  the  act  I  found  my  way  back  into 
his  dressing-room. 

"  Who  are  you?  "  he  asked  the  moment  I  entered. 

I  told  him  who  I  was. 

'  What  do  you  want?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Surely  you  can't  have  forgotten  that "  I 

began. 

"  Answer  my  question,"  he  broke  in ;  "  I  forget 
everything  I  don't  wish  to  remember." 

I  now  realized  that  I  was  dealing  either  with  a 
maniac  or  with  a  man  who  carried  his  profession  into 
his  private  life.  I  decided  in  favor  of  the  latter,  and 
the  conversation  continued  in  this  strain: 

ME. — I  want  a  job. 

THEE. — Can  you  speak  German? 

ME. — No;  but  does  one  have  to  speak  German  to 
go  on  the  stage? 

TREE. — It  would  certainly  be  useful  if  you  wanted 
to  go  on  the  German  stage. 

ME. — I  don't. 

TREE. — Well,  that  settles  it,  doesn't  it?  Can  you 
speak  French? 

ME. — Yes. 

TREE.— Fluently? 

ME. — No. 

TREE. — What  a  pity! 

ME.— Why? 


TREE. — Because  one  should  always  swear  in  a  for- 
eign language  at  rehearsals. 

ME. — Is  there  any  necessity  to  swear  at  all? 

TREE. — No  necessity,  but  a  great  relief.  Are  you 
fond  of  your  wife? 

ME. — I  haven't  got  one. 

TREE. — Yes,  but  are  you  fond  of  her? 

ME. — How  the  dickens  can  I  be  fond  of  a  wife  I 
haven't  got? 

TREE. — Ah,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  .  .  .  Have 
you  read  much? 

ME. — It  depends  upon  what  you  call  reading  much. 

TREE. — I  mean  the  perusal  of  a  vast  quantity  of 
words  printed  on  paper  and  bound  in  books. 

ME. — Yes,  yes,  of  course  I  knew  you  meant  that; 
but  to  what  class  of  reading  do  you  refer? 

TREE. — Oh,  the  kind  that  teaches  facts  and  figures. 

ME. — I  know  nothing  of  facts  and  figures.  They 
don't  interest  me. 

TREE. — That's  right,  quite  right.  Beware  of  the 
encyclopedias.  A  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous 
thing,  but  a  lot  ruins  one's  digestion. 

At  this  moment  Mr.  Henry  Dana,  Tree's  manager, 
came  into  the  room,  and  for  several  minutes  Tree 
had  to  wrestle  with  some  figures  in  a  ledger  that  Mr. 
Dana  had  brought  with  him.  I  sat  and  watched  him. 
He  kept  turning  the  leaves  backwards  and  forwards 
without  the  haziest  idea  of  what  was  being  explained 
to  him,  and  now  and  then  he  would  put  his  finger  on 
some  possibly  conspicuous  figure  and  say :  "  What's 
that?" — rather  in  the  way  a  baby  might  exclaim: 
"  Oh,  look  at  that  lovely  big  one  there!  "  After  a 
while  Mr.  Dana  left,  and  Tree  was  called  for  his  next 


SIR   HERBERT    TREE  37 

act.  He  told  me  to  return  when  it  was  over,  and  then 
left  me.  Just  as  I  was  disappearing  into  the  dress 
circle,  however,  he  came  trotting  back  along  the  cor- 
ridor, dragged  me  back  into  his  room  and,  placing 
his  mouth  against  my  ear,  whispered,  "  Have  you 
ever  been  to  Jerusalem? "  I  replied  that  I  had  not. 
"  How  interesting!  "  he  remarked  as  he  drifted  back 
down  the  passage. 

The  next  act  was  the  last,  and  when  it  was  over  I 
watched  him  removing  his  make-up  and  changing. 
Meanwhile  he  continued  to  murmur  eccentric  noth- 
ings. There  was  no  apparent  connection  in  his  train 
of  thought;  and  as  he  didn't  pay  the  slightest  atten- 
tion to  anything  I  thought  fit  to  say,  I  will  just  record 
his  monologue  without  my  own  interpellations : 

"  How  did  you  like  the  play  ?  Wonderful  produc- 
tion, isn't  it  ?  Have  you  read  my  brochure  on  '  Henry 
VIII '?  Quite  a  charming  little  essay.  I  wrote  it 
during  my  holiday.  It's  always  useful  to  have  a  job 
on  hand  during  one's  holiday ;  it  saves  one  from  bores 
who  insist  on  interrupting  one's  dreams  with  tedious 
prattle  about  politics  or  mixed  bathing.  Did  you  ever 
see  old  Irving?  A  strange  personality,  but  hard  ... 
hard.  ...  I  couldn't  get  on  with  him  at  all.  Quite 
unlike  his  two  boys,  Harry  and  Laurence.  Such  nice 
lads ;  I  like  'em  both.  .  .  .  Don't  forget  to  remember 
me  to  your  wife.  .  .  .See  that  letter?  It's  from  a 
girl  who  wants  to  go  on  the  stage.  She  writes:  *  The 
enclosed  photo  will  show  you  how  attractive  I  am. 
I  also  send  a  photo  of  my  aunt,  who  has  the  tooth- 
ache.' .  .  .  The  English  public  doesn't  really  like 
Shakespeare;  it  prefers  football.  .  .  .  Shakespearean 
scholars  say  I'm  wrong  in  tempting  people  to  come 


38      MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

to  the  theater  and  giving  them  a  spectacle  instead  of 
Shakespeare.  But  I  prefer  a  spectacle  on  the  stage 
to  spectacles  in  the  audience.  .  .  .  Some  day  you  will 
tell  me  how  it  was  you  didn't  go  to  Jerusalem.  It 
must  have  been  a  delightful  experience — not  to  have 
gone  after  all.  .  .  .  Winkles! — yes,  that's  a  fine  oc- 
cupation— picking  winkles  out  of  shells  on  a  frosty 
night  in  Pimlico.  (Are  they  in  shells,  by  the  way?) 
Take  my  advice :  don't  go  on  the  stage — pick  winkles 
out  of  shells.  .  .  .  Do  you  believe  in  God?  Perhaps 
you  aren't  old  enough.  The  reason  old  people  believe 
in  God  is  because  they've  given  up  believing  in  any- 
thing else,  and  one  can't  exist  without  faith  in  some- 
thing. Besides,  after  sixty,  one  hasn't  the  vitality  to 
combat  the  instincts  of  the  majority.  God  is  a  sort  of 
burglar.  As  a  young  man  you  knock  him  down;  as 
an  old  man,  you  try  to  conciliate  him  because  he  may 
knock  you  down.  Moral:  don't  grow  old.  With  age 
comes  caution,  which  is  another  name  for  cowardice, 
and  both  are  the  effect  of  a  guilty  conscience.  What- 
ever else  you  do  in  life,  don't  cultivate  a  conscience. 
Without  a  conscience  a  man  may  never  be  said  to 
grow  old.  This  is  an  age  of  very  old  young  men. 
.  .  .  Never  neglect  an  opportunity  to  play  leap-frog; 
it  is  the  best  of  all  games,  and,  unlike  the  terribly 
serious  and  conscientious  pastimes  of  modern  youth, 
will  never  become  professionalized.  .  .  .  Have  you 
ever  been  in  love?  That  is  the  greatest  thing  in  life. 
Don't  confuse  love  with  matrimony.  Love  keeps  you 
young,  matrimony  makes  you  old.  Love  should  never 
be  allowed  to  disturb  the  excellent  economic  founda- 
tion of  the  domestic  hearth.  Love  is  more  precious 
than  life;  but  a  silver  wedding  speaks  for  itself.  .  .  . 


SIR   HERBERT   TREE  89 

Why  is  it  that  we  have  to  go  to  Germany  for  our 
grease  paints?  ..." 

During  this  little  homily,  Tree  floated  to  and  from 
his  inner  dressing-room,  a  sort  of  washing  sanctum, 
in  a  state  of  complete  uncertainty  as  to  where  he  was, 
who  he  was  talking  to,  and  what  he  was  supposed  to 
be  doing.  It  was  entirely  due  to  the  ministrations  of 
his  dresser  that  he  managed  to  complete  his  toilet  at 
all.  Occasionally  he  would  ejaculate  little  expressions 
of  annoyance  at  not  finding  what  he  wanted  the  mo- 
ment he  wanted  it.  These  would  often  occur  in  the 
most  unexpected  places.  For  instance,  he  followed  up 
his  query  "  Do  you  believe  in  God?  "  with  "  Where's 
that  damned  stud?"  His  movements  struck  me  as 
rather  feminine,  in  particular  the  way  he  walked.  He 
always  gave  the  impression  of  drifting,  sometimes 
even  of  floating,  from  one  place  to  another;  his  legs 
appeared  to  move  from  the  knees,  not  from  the  hips. 
He  had  a  fine  head,  a  brow  both  tall  and  broad,  and 
the  most  alert,  expressive  eyes  I  have  ever  seen  in 
my  life.  Quite  blue  they  were,  but  startlingly  keen 
and  probing.  The  soul  of  Tree  looked  through  those 
eyes — at  one  moment  dull  and  dreamy,  at  another 
flashing  and  joyous.  But  whether  in  repose  or  alive 
with  light,  they  were  always  extraordinary.  No  one 
who  met  Tree  is  ever  likely  to  forget  his  eyes.  An- 
other memorable  thing  about  him  was  his  voice.  It 
was  a  soft,  purring,  nasal  voice,  so  much  a  part  of 
himself  that  dozens  of  the  funniest  sayings  attributed 
to  him  are  only  amusing  to  those  who  remember  the 
tone  of  voice  in  which  he  would  have  said  them.  It 
was  far  more  pleasant  off  the  stage  than  on  it.  When 
acting,  especially  in  Shakespeare,  he  frequently  forced 


40      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

it.    This  accentuated  its  nasal  quality  and  killed  its 
dreamy,  haunting  notes. 

It  has  been  said  that  Tree  was  a  great  wit  and 
humorist.  But  this  is  only  half  true.  His  wit  was 
studied,  not  spontaneous,  and  most  of  his  humor  was 
just  personal  mannerism — his  way  of  saying  a  thing, 
rather  than  the  thing  said.  He  had  a  fantastic  and 
humorous  personality.  Once,  during  a  rehearsal  of 
"  Othello,"  he  made  Laurence  Irving,  a  naturally 
serious  (almost  lugubrious)  person,  roar  with  laugh- 
ter for  several  minutes  together  by  simply  saying  to 
the  stage-manager:  "  Oh,  for  God's  sake  stop  people 
from  passing  in  and  out  of  that  door!  They  look  like 
the  horrible  objects  that  glide  to  and  fro  somewhere 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea." 

Nor  had  Tree  any  touch  of  eloquence.  His 
speeches  were  halting  and  not  seldom  pathetically 
self-conscious.  The  attempt  to  be  witty  at  all  costs 
was  painfully  obvious.  And  when  the  bon  mot  failed 
to  come  off,  as  it  usually  did,  he'd  often  labor  away 
at  the  next  with  blithe  indifference  to  the  feelings  of 
those  well-wishers  who  had  been  polite  enough  to 
snigger  at  the  last.  This  epigrammatic  pose,  mod- 
eled of  course  on  Oscar  Wilde,  was  not  in  any  sense  a 
sign  of  insincerity.  It  was  simply  his  cap  and  bells, 
the  inevitable  surface-expression  of  his  whimsical 
temperament.  Actually,  Tree  was  intensely  keen  on 
his  art,  knit  up  with  it  body  and  soul,  and  expressed 
his  mind  very  honestly  and  forcibly  about  it  when- 
ever called  upon  in  public  to  do  so.  I  certainly  re- 
member an  occasion  when  he  informed  his  audience 
that  even  though  they  might  be  pleased  with  his  work, 
it  didn't  follow  that  he  should  feel  pleased  with  it  him- 


SIR    HERBERT    TREE  41 

self — thus  asserting  the  independence  of  the  artist 
and  defending  his  most  sacred  right  to  unfettered  self- 
expression. 

To  the  average  man  Tree  always  appeared  more 
like  a  big  baby  than  a  serious  and  successful  member 
of  the  community.  Everyone  knows  the  story  of  how 
an  actor,  whom  he  had  known  well  in  earlier  days, 
came  to  see  him  during  his  performance  of  Fagin. 
Tree  looked  at  him  hard,  without  a  glimpse  of  recog- 
nition, for  a  minute  or  so ;  after  which  the  actor,  tem- 
porarily non-plussed,  held  out  his  hand  and  said: 
"  Surely  you  remember  me,  Mr.  Tree?  I  am 

K ."  "  Ah,  yes,  of  course,"  replied  Tree,  "  you 

must  forgive  me;  I  didn't  recognize  you  in  my  dis- 
guise." Some  people  took  offense  at  this  kind  of 
thing,  and  hated  Tree  as  a  poseur.  But  it  was  only 
his  fun.  He  loved,  Puck-like,  to  watch  the  effects  of 
his  own  impudence.  There  was  not  an  atom  of  real 
hardness  in  his  nature. 

Tree  was  invariably  at  his  best  during  rehearsals. 
His  inventive  faculties  then  came  into  full  play.  He 
showed,  times  without  number,  that  he  could  play  all 
the  parts  better  than  the  actors  who  were  cast  for 
them.  By  a  fleeting  gesture,  a  glance,  a  tone  of  the 
voice,  a  physical  pose,  he  could  bring  a  character  be- 
fore one  with  the  most  astounding1  vividness.  It 
didn't  matter  in  the  least  whether  the  characters  were 
tragic,  comic,  fantastical,  light,  heavy,  intense, 
rhetorical — all  came  to  him  as  easily  as  walking  down- 
stairs or  drinking  champagne.  In  "  A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,"  when  Mr.  Arthur  Bourchier  was 
playing  Bottom,  again  and  again  Tree  managed  to 
body  forth  the  very  soul  of  the  immortal  Weaver, 


42      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

and  we  all  wondered  why  on  earth  he  was  letting 
Bourchier  burlesque  the  part  like  a  circus  clown. 
After  dozens  of  attempts,  he  gave  up  the  job  of  try- 
ing to  convert  Bourchier  into  Bottom,  and  then 
taught  the  rest  of  the  cast  so  well  that  not  even 
Bourchier  was  able  to  persuade  the  audience  that 
Samuel  Pepys  was  right  in  calling  the  play  a  piece 
of  buffoonery.  The  activity  of  Lady  Tree  at  re- 
hearsals used  sometimes  to  get  on  his  nerves;  her 
exuberance  and  affectation  worried  him.  During  the 
"  Dream  "  rehearsals  she  kept  fussing  him  about  the 
fairies :  should  they  be  masculine  or  feminine  ?  At  last 
he  turned  on  her:  "  Oh,  make  them  neuter.  Only  so 
can  they  be  at  peace." 

Occasionally,  as  a  rule  when  he  was  rehearsing  a 
tragedy,  Tree  would  become  quite  unbearable.  In 
"  Macbeth  "  he  once  did  the  banquet  scene  twelve 
times  in  succession,  cursing  everybody  at  odd  mo- 
ments throughout  the  ten  hours  or  more  which  he  took 
to  do  it.  On  these  occasions  he  used  to  drink  fairly 
heavily  to  keep  himself  going ;  and  the  more  he  drank, 
the  more  sullen  and  irritable  he  became.  It  was  dur- 
ing the  run  of  "  Macbeth  "  that  he  put  on  a  play  by 
Zangwill  called  "  The  War  God  "  for  two  matinees 
only.  The  rehearsals  were  more  than  trying.  Zang- 
will, who  I  believe  had  quite  a  good  opinion  of  his 
blank  verse,  was  roundly  informed  that  a  great  deal 
of  his  pet  poetry  was  "  mere  journalism  "  and  had  to 
be  cut  out.  And  one  actor  of  considerable  standing 
was  ordered  out  of  the  theater  for  being  "  a  bloody 
old  woman."  (As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  been  rather 
a  nuisance.) 

After  I  joined  the  company  at  His  Majesty's 


SIR   HERBERT    TREE  43 

Theatre,  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Tree  both  off  and  on 
the  stage ;  and  the  fundamental  simplicity  of  his  char- 
acter was  revealed  to  me  over  and  over  again.  He 
had  a  child-like  love  of  flattery,  but  was  much  too 
clever  to  drink  it  all  in.  As  I  admired  him  on  the 
whole  more  than  any  other  actor  I  had  seen,  I  was 
able  quite  honestly  to  give  him  all  the  praise  that  was 
good  for  him,  and  this  made  him  very  susceptible  to 
my  criticism  whenever  it  came.  He  was  really  quite 
cut  up  when  I  told  him  he  wasn't  suited  to  Othello, 
and  he  began  a  lengthy  disquisition  to  the  effect  that 
it  was  his  finest  Shakespearean  performance — be- 
cause, apparently,  it  made  him  sweat  more  than  any 
of  the  others !  He  was  annoyed  when  I  said  one  day 
that  Sargent's  sketch,  though  a  brilliant  likeness,  made 
him  look  much  younger  than  he  was,  and  for  about  an 
hour  afterwards  he  kept  returning  to  the  subject 
with:  "  You  don't  know  me  as  well  as  Sargent  does," 
or  "  You  ought  to  study  the  art  of  expression,"  or 
"  Go  and  see  an  oculist,  my  friend." 

Once  he  gave  me  his  opinion  of  the  dramatic  critics. 
'  There  are,"  he  said,  "  three  kinds  of  dramatic  critics. 
There  are  those  who  say  the  drama  is  going  to  the 
devil,  those  who  say  it's  ascending  to  heaven,  and 
those  who  .halt  between  two  opinions.  So  far  as  my 
own  theater  is  concerned  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with 
the  second  class.  Of  course  not  one  of  them  really 
knows  what  he  is  talking  about.  They  all  make  state- 
ments that  the  intelligent  public  disprove.  And  it's 
the  public,  not  the  critics,  who  have  kept  Shakespeare 
alive.  If  it  were  possible  to  put  on  an  unknown  play 
by  Shakespeare  and  give  its  author's  name  as  John 
Smith,  there'd  not  be  a  single  critic  in  London  with 


44      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

sufficient  discernment  to  spot  the  poet.  In  Germany 
things  are  different.  There  the  critics  possess  true 
culture  and  literary  ability.  But  here  I  sometimes 
think  they've  sent  the  football  reporter  to  our  first 
nights  instead  of  the  dramatic  critic.  Perhaps  it's  the 
same  person,  you  say?  Yes,  there's  something  in  that. 
I  must  try  to  find  out.  Their  extraordinary  prefer- 
ence for  what  they  call  virile  acting  certainly  bears  out 
your  suggestion.  What's  wrong  with  the  English 
theater  is  not  the  drama  or  the  actor  or  the  public, 
but  the  dramatic  critic.  Personally  I  have  nothing 
but  praise  for  the  social  qualities  of  our  critics.  They 
are  delightful  fellows.  No  words  could  do  justice  to 
their  personal  charm,  their  generosity,  their  sincerity, 
their  patriotism,  their  domestic  virtues — and  their  un- 
fathomable ignorance!  " 

I  spent  a  curious  hour  or  two  with  Tree  one  night 
not  long  after  I  joined  him.  I  was  leaving  the  theater 
at  the  close  of  the  performance  when  suddenly  I  heard 
Tiis  voice  on  the  stairs  behind  me:  "Where  are  you 
going?"  "Home  to  bed,"  I  replied.  "Don't  be 
rash,"  said  he;  "young  and  yet  careful."  Then  he 
gripped  my  arm,  hailed  a  taxi,  pushed  me  inside,  got 
in  himself,  and  slammed  the  door.  The  driver  left  his 
seat,  opened  the  door  and  asked  where  we  wanted  to 
go. 

'  That  is  not  the  sort  of  question  that  should  be  put 
to  a  gentleman  at  this  time  of  night,"  rejoined  Tree. 

"  Come  orf  it,"  snapped  the  driver. 

"  He  means  '  off,'  using  the  term  in  a  metaphorical 
sense,"  Tree  murmured. 

"  Are  you  going  to  tell  me  where  you  want  to  go, 
or  shall  I  fetch  a  bobby? "  demanded  the  man. 


SIR   HERBERT   TREE  45 

"Whither  thou  goest,  we  will  go,"  quoted  Tree; 
"  but  where  thou  lodgest  we  certainly  don't  intend  to 
lodge."  Then,  seeing  the  man  was  getting  angry,  he 
added :  "  Drive  us  slowly  round  and  round  the  West 
End  until  we  tell  you  to  stop.  If  you  see  a  man  in 
green  trousers,  a  top  hat  and  spotted  waistcoat,  blow 
your  horn  three  times  and  increase  your  speed." 

The  driver,  not  altogether  certain  whether  he  was 
indulging  a  privileged  lunatic  or  dealing  with  a  Scot- 
land Yard  detective,  returned  to  his  seat  and  started 
off.  Tree  lay  back  in  his  corner,  crossed  his  legs  and 
talked.  Now  and  then  I  said  something,  to  which  he 
paid  no  more  attention  than  a  grunt,  and  his  purrings 
practically  amounted  to  a  soliloquy,  of  which  I  give 
here  only  those  parts  I  remember  accurately.  The 
dots  denote,  according  to  their  number,  short  and  long 
pauses.  I  should  add  that  the  gentleman  to  whom 
he  refers  so  frequently  had  just  been  hung  for  mur- 
dering his  wife: 

"  I  used  to  believe  the  world  was  round.  Nowa- 
days I  am  sure  it  is  flat Poor  old  Crippen! 

....  Why?  you  naturally  ask."  (I  hadn't,  but  it 
didn't  matter.)  "  I  don't  know.  Possibly  because 
I  can't  believe  that  God  plays  football  with  the 
planetary  system.  The  idea  is  outrageous.  It  is  hor- 
rible that  a  man  of  your  intelligence  should  support 
it."  (I  hadn't  uttered  a  word  in  its  favor,  but  that 
was  neither  here  nor  there.)  "  You  have  what  I  may 
call  a  Crystal  Palace  mind.  I  don't  mean  to  suggest 
that  your  mind  is  as  clear  as  crystal.  It  isn't.  No 
Crystal  Palace  minds  are.  That  is  the  paradox  of 
the  Victorian  era.  . Poor  old  Crip- 
pen!  Don't  talk  so  much.  Talking 


46      MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

hinders  thought.  I  always  think  aloud,  and  I  can't 
stand  people  talking  while  I'm  thinking  at  the 
top  of  my  voice.  Do  you  really  imagine  that  any- 
thing you  say  is  of  the  smallest  importance?  Your 

tongue  was  given  you  to  hold  it Poor  old 

Crippen! Once,  many  years  ago, 

while  I  was  witnessing  my  own  impersonation  of 
Hamlet — a  beautiful  performance — the  thought 
struck  me  that  I  would,  some  time  or  another,  pro- 
duce one  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  But  alas! — don't 
interrupt  me — all  our  ideals  escape  us.  Besides  it 
wouldn't  be  fair  to  Sidney  Lee  and  the  rest  of  the 
would-be  Elizabethans,  none  of  whom  would  have 
anything  to  grumble  about  if  I  stuck  to  the  '  true  and 
perfect  coppie  '.  Their  occupation  would  be  gone, 
and  one  cannot  trifle  with  the  problem  of  the  Unem- 
ployable  Does  your  eye  ever  roll  in  a  fine 

frenzy?  JsTo,  of  course  not.  You  would  be  in  Han- 
well  if  it  did.  As  I  said  before,  you  have  a  Crippen 
Palace  mind.  .  .  .  Poor  old  Crystal !  .  .  . " 

At  this  point  Tree  lapsed  into  silence  for  about 
ten  minutes.  Then  he  commenced  to  murmur,  but  I 
only  caught  one  phrase—  "  She  probably  deserved  it  " 
— referable  no  doubt  to  the  late  Mrs.  Crippen.  Then 
silence  again.  I  began  to  feel  sleepy  and  had  got 
into  a  sort  of  nodding  condition  when  the  taxi  stopped 
and  the  driver  opened  the  door  violently.  "  'Ow 
long's  this  going  on  for?  "  he  shouted.  Tree,  without 
moving,  said  to  me:  "  Give  him  something  on  ac- 
count." 

"  I'm  awfully  sorry,"  I  replied,  "  but  I've  only  got 
half-a-crown  on  me." 

"  My  God !  "  exclaimed  Tree ;  "  fancy  inviting  a 


SIR   HERBERT    TREE  47 

man  to  go  for  a  ride  and  then  expecting  him  to  pay 
for  it." 

ME. — But,  Sir  Herbert,  it  was  you  who  invited  me. 

TREE. — Yes,  I  know.  I  regard  my  behavior  as 
perfectly  scandalous. 

ME. — Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon. 

TREE. — You  do  not  beg  in  vain. 

DRIVER. — I'd  like  you  two  gentlemen's  names  and 
addresses. 

TREE. — I  know  what !  He  shall  have  seats.  Yes, 
he  shall  have  as  many  seats  as  he  likes.  He  shall  have 
rows  of  seats  all  to  himself.  He  shall  have  tier  upon 
tier  of  boxes  and  circles.  We  shall  build  a  theater  to 
hold  countless  seats — and  he  shall  have  them  all. 
Poor  old  Crippen!  .  . 

ME — (to  Driver).  Will  you  please  drive  us  back 
to  His  Majesty's  Theatre.  My  name  wouldn't  inter- 
est you,  but  this  is  Sir  Herbert  Tree — a  great  man 
with  curious  habits. 

DRIVER. — Right  you  are,  sir.    I've  'card  of  'im. 

We  must  have  been  somewhere  in  St.  James's  dur- 
ing this  incident,  because  I  remember  driving  at  an 
unholy  rate  through  King  Street,  across  the  Square 
and  along  Charles  Street.  We  narrowly  missed  an- 
other taxi  in  Waterloo  Place,  which  brought  Tree  up 
with  a  jerk  and  an  exclamation:  "  I'm  sure  he  didn't 
mean  to  do  it  "  —which  may  have  been  inspired  either 
by  the  driver  or  Dr.  Crippen.  At  the  theater  he  man- 
aged to  borrow  some  money  for  the  taxi  man,  and 
then  I  left  him.  His  last  words  were:  "  Good  night, 
my  boy.  .  .  .  Why  in  heaven's  name  can't  they  use 
the  Lethal  Chamber?" 

Tree's  chief  failing,  which  constituted  no  little  of 


48      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

his  charm,  was  this  whimsical  inappropriatene'js  that 
I  have  tried  to  illustrate.  One  was  never  perfectly 
certain  where  sincerity  began  and  absurdity  left  off. 
He  undoubtedly  adopted  a  pose,  but  a  pose  may  be 
just  as  much  a  part  of  a  man  as  a  temper.  It  is 
wrong  to  call  a  man  insincere  just  because  he  poses. 
We  all  pose,  more  or  less.  With  Tree,  at  any  rate, 
the  pose  was  the  man.  Without  it,  he  would  not  have 
been  Tree.  Let  me  give  two  characteristical  in- 
stances. They  both  show  him  in  his  habit  as  he  lived. 

An  actor  of  my  acquaintance,  having  heard  that 
Tree  was  very  interested  in  the  art  of  make-up  and 
always  noticed  those  of  his  company  who  took  pains 
to  get  the  right  effect,  decided  to  give  his  imagination 
full  play,  and  arrived  on  the  stage  at  the  first  dress 
rehearsal  in  a  quite  masterly  disguise.  Tree  spotted 
him  from  afar  and  drifted  towards  him.  The  follow- 
ing conversation  then  took  place: 

TREE. — My  God!    How  did  you  do  it? 

ACTOR  (immensely  elated). — Oh,  I — well,  I  did  it. 

TREE. — The  result  of  life-long  study — what? 

ACTOR. — Oh,  hardly  that,  sir,  but  of  course  a  good 
deal. 

TREE. — I've  never  seen  such  shadow  effects — won- 
derful! But  surely,  surely  someone  must  have  helped 
you?  You  couldn't  have  done  it  entirely  out  of  your 
own  head? 

ACTOR. — It's  very  gratifying  to  hear  you  talk  like 
that,  sir.  Yes,  I  did  it  all,  quite  on  my  own.  "  Alone 
I  did  it"— Ha,  ha!.  . 

TREE. — A  wit,  too.    Very  good.    Ha,  ha,  ha! 

ACTOR. — Ha,  ha,  ha,  ha,  ha ! 

TREE. — Quite  so.    Ha!    It's  amazing.    Let  me  see 


SIR    HERBERT    TREE  49 

you  in  profile.  Yes,  yes.  Astonishing.  Now  the 
back  view  please.  Most  remarkable.  No,  no;  don't 
turn  round ;  the  back  view  couldn't  be  improved  upon. 
The  '  hair  '  effect  is  quite  unique.  How  did  you  man- 
age it? 

ACTOE. — But  that's  my  own  hair,  sir. 

TREE. — Oh,  I  see.  Your  own  hair?  Yes,  yes. 
The  old  quarrel  between  nature  and  art.  Now  you 
may  turn  round.  My  God!  What  a  face!  A 

miracle But,  I  say,  you  aren't  going  on  like 

that,  are  you? 

All  this  was  rather  cruel  on  the  poor  actor,  but  it 
probably  did  him  a  lot  of  good  in  the  long  run,  and 
he  tells  the  story  now  against  himself  without  any 
spice  of  malice  against  Tree. 

The  other  instance  is  still  more  typical  of  the  man. 
He  was  lunching  one  day  with  a  friend  at  the 
Carlton.  Suddenly  he  noticed  someone  lunching 
alone  at  another  table.  He  called  the  waiter  and 
said: 

"  My  compliments  to  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones — 
the  gentleman  over  there — and  will  he  very  kindly 
come  and  speak  to  me  for  a  minute? "  The  waiter 
did  as  he  was  asked,  and  returned  to  say  that  Sir 
Herbert  was  mistaken — the  gentleman  was  not  Mr. 
Henry  Arthur  Jones. 

*  Yes,  yes,"  said  Tree,  "  very  funny,  very  funny 
indeed:  he  always  did  like  his  little  joke.  But  this  is 
important.  Please  tell  Mr.  Jones  that  I  would  feel 
very  grateful  if  he  will  behave  seriously  for  once.  I 
am  most  anxious  to  speak  to  him." 

The  waiter  again  approached  the  solitary  gentle- 
man and  gave  Tree's  message.  Again  he  returned 


50      MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

and  said:  "  The  gentleman  is  not  joking  at  all.  He 
says  he  is  quite  serious  and  he  is  not  Mr.  Henry 
Arthur  Jones."  Tree  dismissed  the  waiter  with  a 
laugh  which  implied  that  Mr.  Jones  was  incorrigible 
and  went  on  with  his  lunch. 

The  solitary  gentleman  finished  his  meal  before  the 
others,  and  on  his  way  out  stopped  at  Tree's  table. 
Addressing  Tree  with  some  little  heat,  he  said:  "I 
don't  see  why  you  should  insist  on  knowing  me. 
Surely  it  was  enough  to  point  out  your  mistake  once? 
My  name  is  not  Jones." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  quite  seriously  that  you 
are  not  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones? "  queried  Tree. 

"  I  do,  sir!  "  shouted  the  other. 

"  Then  you  were  quite  right  to  deny  it,"  mildly 
returned  Sir  Herbert  as  he  continued  his  lunch. 

I  have  said  that  Tree's  wit  was  labored,  but  some- 
times he  did  say  the  most  delightful  things  with  ap- 
parent spontaneity.  For  example,  when  he  first  saw 
"  Chu  Chin  Chow  "  in  1916  he  summed  it  up  su- 
premely in  a  phrase:  "It's  more  navel  than  mil- 
linery," which  was  worth  more  as  a  criticism  alone 
than  all  the  columns  both  pro  and  con  that  had  ap- 
peared in  the  papers. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was,  curiously,  the  last 
time  I  saw  George  Alexander  and  H.  B.  Irving.  It 
was  in  the  autumn  of  1916  and  Tree  had  crossed  over 
from  America  for  a  week  or  two  in  England.  As 
President  of  the  Actors'  Committee  for  the  Shake- 
speare Tercentenary  Performance  he  came  to  the  St. 
James's  Theatre  one  day  for  the  purpose  of  making 
me  a  presentation  from  the  Committee  for  my  services 
as  Secretary.  Alexander  and  Irving  were  the  only 


SIR   HERBERT    TREE  51 

other  members  of  the  Committee  present.    All  three 
died  while  I  was  serving  abroad. 

Tree  asked  me  how  I  liked  the  Army.  I  replied  in 
suitable  terms.  "  Do  you  want  to  go  to  the  front?  " 
he  asked.  "  Does  anyone  not  want  to? "  I  countered. 
"  I  don't,"  he  answered  emphatically,  and  then,  as  an 
afterthought,  "  at  least  I  shan't  pretend  I  do."  This 
was  a  most  refreshing  statement  in  those  days  when 
all  the  old  men  in  the  country  went  about  canting 
their  hypocritical  twaddle:  "  If  only  we  were 
younger! " 

Tree  then  described,  with  much  gesticulation,  the 
inventions  that  were  shortly  to  be  used  against  the 
Zeppelins.  I  remember  he  spoke  of  some  astound- 
ing things  that  our  airmen  were  to  carry,  referring 
to  them  as  "  great  tentacles  of  fire  " — the  entire  idea 
having  no  doubt  originated,  and  elaborated  itself,  in 
his  own  mind. 

Next,  H.  B.  Irving  had  a  yarn  (straight  from 
Whitehall,  of  course)  relating  to  Lord  Kitchener's 
death.  Kitchener  had  apparently  received  a  telegram 
a  day  or  two  before  he  started  for  Russia  which  ran: 
"  Shall  Henry  enter  the  London  Academy  next  De- 
cember? "  He  couldn't  make  head  or  tail  of  it;  but 
shortly  after  the  ship  which  carried  him  had  been 
sunk  off  the  Shetlands,  someone  discovered  that  the 
first  letter  of  each  word  in  the  telegram  spelt  the 
ominous  name.  "  Dirty  work,  I  should  think," 
summed  up  H.  B. 

"  I  must  take  a  copy  of  that,  Harry,"  exclaimed 
Tree,  with  all  the  child's  interest  in  a  new  toy. 

That  was  his  abiding  charm.    He  never  grew  up. 


52      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

And  now  I  want  to  say  a  few  words  about  Tree's 
work  and  position  as  an  artist.  He  was,  beyond  any 
cavil  or  question,  the  last  of  the  great  actor -managers. 
With  him  a  system  died.  It  was  a  system  with  a  few 
fine  virtues  and  some  serious  faults.  He  was,  per- 
haps, the  best  possible  example  of  both.  By  its 
virtues  we  were  his  debtors  for  a  few  unforgettable 
impersonations,  some  astonishingly  fine  productions, 
and  a  really  big  personality.  By  its  faults  we 
were  his  creditors  for  some  terrible  examples  of 
bad  casting,  not  a  few  atrociously  poor  plays — 
staged  for  the  sole  purpose  of  providing  him  with  fat 
character  parts — and  an  occasionally  frightful  ex- 
penditure of  lime-light.  His  death  raised  the  inter- 
esting question  of  how  far  individualism  may  benefit 
art  or  how  far  socialism  might  redeem  it.  Undoubt- 
edly his  best  performances  would  have  suffered  from 
outside  interference;  undoubtedly,  too,  outside  inter- 
ference would  have  saved  us  from  his  worst  perform- 
ances. And  the  same  can  be  said  with  equal  truth  of 
the  plays  he  produced. 

I  have  already  stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  essay 
that  at  a  very  impressionable  age  Tree's  art  exercised 
considerable  influence  over  me.  In  1906,  fresh  from 
school,  I  saw  him  for  the  first  time  in  Stephen 
Phillips's  rhetorical  masterpiece,  "  Nero."  That  was 
the  first  big  artistic  moment  of  my  life.  Unsophisti- 
cated though  I  was,  I  think  I  realized  that  Tree  was 
unsuited  to  the  part,  except  .in  make-up  and  general 
conception.  As  with  Macbeth  of  a  later  date,  his 
idea  of  the  thing  could  not  have  been  bettered:  the 
execution  only  was  wanting.  Still,  "  Nero  "  was  a 
great  show,  taken  on  the  whole,  and  my  imagination, 


SIR    HERBERT    TREE  53 

half  famished  by  the  paralyzing  curriculum  of  an 
English  public  school,  awoke  to  a  new  world — a  world 
of  poetry,  music  and  beauty. 

Then  I  began  to  lunch  in  the  City  on  a  cup  of 
coffee  and  a  roll  and  butter,  so  as  to  save  my  money 
for  the  pit  of  His  Majesty's  Theatre.  I  saw  prac- 
tically all  his  famous  impersonations,  in  revivals  or 
otherwise,  and  a  large  number  of  his  infamous  im- 
personations as  well.  The  common  notion  of  Tree's 
best  pieces  of  acting  was  never  right.  His  was  much 
too  fantastical  in  such  popular  parts  as  Falstaff, 
Demetrius,  Malvolio,  Fagin,  Shylock,  Svengali, 
Micawber,  Zakkuri.  They  were  brilliantly  clever 
caricatures,  intellectually  great  caricatures — what 
you  will — but  not  real  living  characters.  His 
performances  of  them  merely  went  to  show  that 
caricatures  can  amuse  and  interest  as  much  as 
their  prototypes.  In  my  opinion  Tree's  Malvolio 
was  a  much  more  entertaining  person  than  Shake- 
speare's, and  his  Shylock  made  a  far  more  majestic 
figure  than  the  poet's  "  periwig-pated  fellow."  How- 
ever, this  was  not  strictly  legitimate  work,  and 
bardoloters  may  be  forgiven  for  having  considered  it  a 
crime  and  Tree  a  most  offensive  criminal.  Then, 
too,  he  caricatured  those  two  already  excellent  cari- 
catures, Fagin  and  Svengali,  and,  needless  to  say,  got 
'more  fun  out  of  them  than  their  creators  ever  dreamt 
of  putting  into  them.  In  fact  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  just  as  his  half-brother,  Max  Beerbohm, 
is  the  greatest  of  pictorial  caricaturists,  so  Tree  was 
the  greatest  of  histrionic  caricaturists.  He  converted 
the  peculiarities  of  the  original  into  the  characteristics 
of  the  copy.  Very  rarely  did  he  subdue  this  Puck- 


54      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

like  element  in  his  work,  but  we  owed  Colonel  New- 
come,  Beethoven,  Paragot  and  Richard  II  to  those 
rare  occasions.  Tree  did  not  read  Shakespeare  by 
flashes  of  lightning — he  usually  read  him  by  flashes 
of  lime-light — but  as  Richard  II  he  read  him  by 
flashes  of  insight.  He  used  the  X-ray  of  sympathy 
and  imagination. 

One  can  but  treat  actors  by  comparison  with  con- 
temporaries of  their  cloth,  if  I  may  so  term  it.  "  They 
are  the  abstract  and  brief  chronicles  of  the  time  " 
Hamlet  tells  us.  The  finer  spirits  among  them  are 
the  priests  of  the  literary  gods.  True,  with  the  help 
of  the  gramophone  and  the  cinematograph  a  sort  of 
pale  understudy  may  be  immortalized,  but  the  charm 
(if  there  is  any),  the  personality,  make  their  final 
exeunt  with  the  owner.  A  comparison  with  the  rest 
of  the  stage  celebrities  of  his  day  shows  us  that  Tree 
had  not  the  virility  of  Lewis  Waller,  the  classical 
naturalness  and  unequaled  elocution  of  Forbes- 
Robertson.  Tree's  Hamlet,  for  example,  was  a  ro- 
mantic idealization  of  the  commoner  things,  the  very 
absence  of  which  distinguishes  the  real  Hamlet  from 
the  pettifogging  world  around  him.  Forbes-Robert- 
son's Hamlet  was  the  only  possible  Hamlet  in  con- 
ception and  the  only  thinkable  Hamlet  in  execution — 
a  flawless  performance.  Again,  Tree  was  utterly 
incapable  of  the  pit-popular  heroic  parts  in  which 
Waller  excelled.  Tree's  Hotspur  must  have  been 
quite  painful  to  watch,  and  his  Antony  was  too  fear- 
some to  capture  a  real  mob.  As  lago  he  would  have 
swamped  any  Othello  on  the  stage,  but  he  chose  to 
play  Othello  and  missed  one  of  the  chances  of  his  life. 
This  was  a  great  pity,  for  he  might  have  established 


SIR   HERBERT   TREE  55 

an  excellent  tradition  by  turning  I  ago  into  a  figure 
of  farce. 

His  extraordinary  faculty  for  caricature  was  the 
direct  outcome  of  a  restless,  inventive  mind.  He  was 
never  contented,  always  wanting  to  improve,  to  build 
up,  a  part.  Then,  when  he  became  tired,  or  when 
his  fertility  was  momentarily  exhausted,  he  used 
calmly  to  "  walk  through  "  the  performance  and  pull 
faces  or  make  jokes  at  other  people  on  the  stage. 
When  he  was  not  flattering  the  public  with  his  best, 
he  was  insulting  the  public  with  his  worst.  He  sim- 
ply couldn't  help  it;  and  this  strange  behavior  was 
certainly  due  to  the  appalling  effect  of  long  runs  on 
a  highly  sensitive  and  artistic  temperament.  He 
should  never  have  been  allowed  to  play  a  part  for 
more  than  three  consecutive  performances. 

Tree's  personality  was  all-dominant  whenever  he 
choose  to  exercise  it.  It  was  just  as  fantastical  off  the 
stage  as  on  it,  and  just  as  willful.  The  best  part  he 
ever  played  was  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree  in  the  play 
of  that  name.  He  was  his  own  best  mimic.  He  was 
a  perpetual  caricature  of  himself.  He  always  took 
possession  of  a  place  or  a  number  of  people  in  a 
weird,  childlike  way.  At  the  Coronation  Gala  Per- 
formance in  1911  he  acted  Antony  in  the  Forum 
scene  from  "  Julius  Csesar,"  and  it  was  arranged  that 
Granville  Barker  should  produce  the  scene.  Nearly 
every  actor  of  any  importance  on  the  British  stage 
and  a  large  number  (like  myself)  of  no  importance 
whatever  appeared  in  this  "  star  turn  "  as  the  crowd 
of  citizens.  In  honor  of  so  famous  an  occasion, 
Barker  spent  many  sleepless  nights  (so  I  imagine) 
in  preparing  "  a  book  of  the  words."  This  turned 


56      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

out  to  be  a  pamphlet  of  two  dozen  pages  containing 
the  movements  of  everybody  concerned  at  each  point 
in  the  proceedings — e.g.  "X365  strikes  his  breast  and 
moves  up  stage  to  left  center,  where  he  is  met  by 
Y29  and  Z123,  who  condole  with  him,"  or  something 
of  that  nature.  Altogether  a  noteworthy  enterprise. 
After  two  or  three  desperate  rehearsals,  the  effect  of 
which  should  have  whitened  the  hair  of  any  ordinarily 
constituted  man,  Enter  Tree.  Within  a  very  few 
minutes  Barker's  booklets  were  considerably  below 
par  and  Tree  was  dominating  the  entire  assembly 
with  eagle  glance  and  outstretched  arm.  "  I  will 
sway  them,"  he  declaimed:  "the  movements  they 
make  shall  be  dictated  by  the  magic  of  my  utterance ; 
they  shall  all  weep  when  I  weep,  all  execrate  when 
I  execrate,  and  be  silenced  as  one  man  by  the  uplift- 
ing of  my  hand  " — or  words  to  that  effect. 

And  so  it  was.  And  so  it  always  was.  Quite  po- 
litely and  quite  firmly  Tree  invariably  did  exactly 
what  he  wanted  to  do.  But  he  was  a  dreamer,  too, 
with  all  the  dreamer's  elusive  charm  and  changing 
fancy.  It  was  the  dreamer  in  him,  the  poet,  that 
brought  Richard  II  to  life  so  vividly  and  naturally, 
making  him  infinitely  human  and  lovable,  and  yet  a 
spirit  from  the  spheres,  haunting,  wistful,  appeal- 
ing. 

London  has  not  been  the  same  place  to  me  since 
Tree's  death.  A  link  with  my  youth  has  snapped. 
The  great  theater  which  he  loved  and  lived  in  will 
remain,  but  the  genius  which  made  it  great  has  gone, 
and  in  going  has  bereft  it  of  a  certain  nobility  and 
glamor  quite  unlike  the  temporary  distinctions  of 
other  theaters. 


SIR   HERBERT   TREE  57 

In  gratitude  for  some  sacred  benefits,  which  can 
no  more  be  repeated  or  described  than  past  moments 
of  one's  spiritual  growth,  I  have  here  tried  to  keep 
the  memory  of  these  passing  things,  now  alas !  fading 
away — so  soon  to  become  the  pale  shadows  of  a  dream. 


Ill 

SIR  FRANCIS  GALTON 

THE  most  difficult  art  in  the  world  is  the  art  of  under- 
standing your  fellow  man.  Sympathy  has  to  be  al- 
most abnormally  developed  in  order  to  do  so.  And 
you  must  begin  the  study  by  trying  to  understand 
yourself.  In  literature,  the  paucity  of  great  biogra- 
phies is  sufficient  evidence  of  the  difficulty,  and  the 
negligible  quantity  of  great  autobiographies  throws  a 
flood  of  light  on  the  significance  of  this. 

Unfortunately,  a  biographer  usually  limits  his  work 
to  the  record  of  his  subject's  achievements  and  leaves 
out  the  very  thing  his  readers  are  clamoring  for,  viz., 
the  heart  and  soul  interest,  the  personality,  that  is 
behind  everything.  Thus  we  are  invariably  left  to 
discover  the  Man  in  this  or  that  tit-bit  of  scandal  or  in 
the  gossip  of  two  or  three  brief  sketches  by  some  of 
his  friends. 

Sir  Francis  Gal  ton's  contemporaries  have  told  us 
very  little  about  him,  and  the  majority  have  of  course 
gone  the  way  of  all  flesh.  It  seems  to  me  a  pity  that 
no  one  should  have  taken  the  trouble  to  write  a  per- 
sonal sketch  of  him,  as  distinct  from  the  very  long 
and  very  official  (that  is,  scientific)  "  Life  and  La- 
bours," by  his  friend,  Professor  Karl  Pearson.  His 
influence  will,  I  am  convinced,  increase  with  the  years, 
and  it  is  certain  that  our  children  will  want  to  know 

58 


SIR    FRANCIS    GALTON  59 

more  about  him  personally  than  we  ourselves  have 
yet  been  told. 

At  any  rate  I  shall  try  in  a  few  paragraphs  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  Man,  Galton,  and  leave  his  works  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  I  can't  do  much  harm  by 
it  and  I  may  do  a  little  good. 

I  first  got  to  know  him  (he  was  my  great-great- 
uncle,  by  the  way)  when  I  had  just  left  school  and 
was  in  business  in  the  City.  I  was  19:  he  was  84. 
I  expanded  with  self-importance;  he  was  strangely 
simple  and  unaffected.  I  had  begun  to  feel  that  I 
knew  everything:  he  had  long  passed  the  age  when 
he  first  felt  that  he  knew  nothing.  In  brief,  I  was 
a  dogmatic  prig:  he  was  a  tolerant  philosopher.  He 
at  once  began  talking  to  me  about  my  life  in  the  City. 
Did  it  interest  me?  Had  I  learnt  much?  Was  it 
my  intention  to  keep  at  it  and  pave  out  a  business 
career?  He  soon  changed  the  topic  when  he  found 
that  I  was  indifferent,  and  in  a  very  short  time  got 
at  my  momentary  weakness — theaters  and  playgoing 
generally.  We  talked  of  the  modern  drama  and  of 
Tree's  Shakespearean  productions.  The  latter  in- 
terested me  enormously,  the  former  (in  those  days) 
hardly  at  all.  I  had  not  begun  to  grow.  He  wanted 
me  to  see  one  or  two  of  Shaw's  plays,  and  took  tickets 
for  me  at  the  Court  Theatre  several  times.  In  return 
for  this  concession  on  my  part,  he  went  with  me  to 
see  Tree  in  "  Nero."  It  pleased  him,  I  remember,  as 
he  was  already  a  little  deaf  and  the  spectacular  part 
of  the  production  appealed  to  him.  He  thought  Tree 
"  looked  "  the  part.  He  noticed  that  some  of  the 
people  got  on  their  feet  during  the  Tableau  of  the 
Burning  of  Rome,  and  thought  this  was  strange,  since 


60      MODERN   MEN   AND    MUMMERS 

the  scene  had  already  been  given  without  mishap  a 
sufficient  number  of  times  to  allay  any  fear  that  its 
realism  might  otherwise  engender.  I  said  that  they 
got  up  to  go,  as  the  play  was  almost  over.  "  No," 
he  replied,  "  for  if  that  was  so,  they  would  make  some 
attempt  to  search  for  their  hats  or  coats  in  the  act  of 
rising."  Details  like  this  never  escaped  him.  On 
one  occasion  he  was  asked  to  lecture  on  Eugenics 
before  some  social  gathering.  Owing  to  his  age  he 
wrote  out  the  lecture  and  arranged  for  someone  else 
to  read  it.  Upon  being  asked  to  make  a  few  remarks 
at  the  close  of  the  meeting  he  said:  "  I  have  often 
observed  that  when  people  are  interested  in  a  dis- 
course, the  movements  of  their  hands  or  legs  are 
roughly  two  in  every  minute.  When  they  are  bored 
this  number  may  be  multiplied  by  four,  or,  at  mo- 
ments of  excessive  ennui,  five.  It  gave  me  real  pleas- 
ure to  perceive  that  you  were  even  absorbed  in  my 
paper.  Your  movements  have  averaged  only  one  to 
the  minute." 

His  mind  and  way  of  life  were  so  practical  as 
almost  to  seem  eccentric.  For  instance,  at  one  time 
he  used  to  secrete  a  brick  somewhere  on  his  person. 
This  would  be  attached  to  a  piece  of  cord ;  and,  unob- 
served by  those  around  him,  he  would  quietly  release 
the  brick  from  its  position,  let  it  down  to  the  ground, 
mount  in  order  to  gain  a  good  view  of  some  procession 
or  other  and  draw  it  up  to  its  resting-place  at  the  close 
of  the  proceedings.  At  another  time  he  was  anxious 
to  get  material  for  a  book,  when  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  strike  a  fair  proportion  in  estimating  the 
beauty  or  otherwise  of  the  average  woman.  There- 
upon he  improvised  some  machine  which  ticked  off 


SIR   FRANCIS    GALTON  61 

numbers  on  a  sheet  of  paper  when  a  button  was 
pressed.  He  placed  one  machine  in  his  right-hand 
trousers  pocket  and  another  in  his  left.  After  which 
he  strolled  through  the  streets  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets  and  calmly  pressed  buttons — right,  beauty; 
left,  otherwise — as  the  female  population  passed  him 
"  regardless  of  their  doom." 

Galton  had  a  character  of  great  simplicity:  there 
was  not  a  shade  of  pose  or  affectation  in  him.  It  is 
a  tribute  to  say  of  him  that  never  once  were  you  made 
conscious  of  his  position  in  the  scientific  world.  He 
was  uniformly  courteous  and  charming  and  simple. 
This  simplicity  was  one  of  his  three  distinguishing 
characteristics.  Another  was  his  eminently  practical, 
or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  scientific,  mind.  Of  this 
I  have  already  given  some  examples.  The  third  out- 
standing feature  about  him  was  the  astonishing  in- 
terest he  took  in  almost  every  subject  under  the  sun. 

I  think  Boswell  attributed  to  Johnson  in  a  special 
degree  the  art  of  drawing  out  the  best  in  everyone 
by  discovering  their  chief  interests  and  making  these 
the  topic  of  conversation.  This  is  an  exceptional  gift 
and  must  be  used  spontaneously  to  have  the  right 
effect;  there  must  not  be  a  shadow  of  effort  about  it. 
I  could  never  find  a  subject  that  Galton  was  not  will- 
ing and  eager  to  discuss — from  golf  to  Egyptology. 
And  he  always  managed  to  throw  new  light  on  mat- 
ters upon  which  one  liked  to  believe  oneself  an  ex- 
pert. I  remember  him  asking  me  for  my  impressions 
of  Mexico,  where  I  had  just  been,  and  I  was  almost 
electrified  at  the  knowledge  he  displayed,  though  he 
had  never  visited  the  country  and  the  things  we  dis- 
cussed were  those  little  everyday  affairs  in  the  life 


62      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

of  a  people  such  as  one  could  only  seize  upon  and 
make  actual  to  the  listener  after  a  personal  visit  to  the 
place. 

I  think  this  part  of  his  character,  this  well-nigh 
unlimited  interest  he  took  in  everybody  and  every- 
thing, was  the  most  distinctive  thing  about  him,  as 
it  was  certainly  the  cause  of  his  many  friendships  and 
the  attraction  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people  to 
him.  My  mother,  who  knew  him  intimately  for  years, 
writes  to  me:  "  One  thing  perhaps  that  always  struck 
me  anew  every  time  I  saw  him  was  the  extraordinary 
sweetness  of  his  expression,  and  as  I  think  expression 
shows  the  inner  man,  I  have  always  thought  of  him 
as  being  so  full  of  kindliness.  He  certainly  never 
frightened  me  as  some  great  men  might  have  done, 
and  I  never  minded  showing  him  my  ignorance.  He 
also  explained  things  so  very  well,  made  things  easy 
to  understand.  He  generally  managed  to  find  out 
the  things  you  were  interested  in  and  talked  of  these, 
taking  such  an  extraordinary  interest  in  them  himself 
that  the  conversation  was  a  delight.  He  was  very 
lovable,  and  I  think  everyone  who  had  much  to  do 
with  him,,  high  or  low,  was  devoted  to  him.  He  was 
also  unselfish  and  hated  giving  trouble  to  others.  He 
was  very  fond  of  poetry  and  generally  had  a  volume 
of  Shakespeare  close  to  him,  but  music  he  rather  dis- 
liked than  otherwise.  None  of  the  Galtons  care  much 
for  music " 

Strangely  enough,  in  the  variety  of  topics  he 
touched  upon  and  so  often  irradiated  with  the  torch- 
light of  common-sense,  Johnson  seems  to  me  the  only 
big  man  of  whom  we  have  record  at  all  comparable 
to  Galton,  though  of  course  the  enormous  advance  in 


SIR   FRANCIS    GALTON  63 

the  mental  and  spiritual  outlook  since  Johnson's  time 
no  less  than  the  unthinkable  addition  of  inventions 
and  the  thousand  and  one  other  complexities  of  mod- 
ern existence,  made  of  Galton  a  man  of  far  rarer 
caliber  and  wider  culture. 

In  appearance,  Galton  was  exactly  like  the  painting 
Furze  did  of  him.  The  likeness  shows  him  in  a  very 
characteristic  attitude  and  gets  his  expression,  even 
the  mold  of  the  face,  to  perfection.  His  eyes  were 
quite  blue  and  set  deep  in  his  head,  with  finely  promi- 
nent brows;  the  well-chiseled  nose  was  surmounted 
by  a  forehead  of  such  perfect  proportion  that  one 
never  really  thought  of  him  as  bald;  the  mouth  and 
chin,  also,  were  statuesque  in  their  modeling.  When 
in  repose,  he  sometimes,  I  don't  know  how,  reminded 
me  of  the  statue  of  the  Dying  Napoleon  at  Versailles. 
He  was  short,  about  5  foot  6  inches  I  imagine,  and 
at  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking  he  stooped  con- 
siderably when  walking.  His  voice  was  soft  and  had 
a  smooth,  sweet  quality  which  enhanced  the  stillness 
and  peace  of  his  personality.  There  was  always 
something  very  homely  and  quiet  about  him.  He 
almost  made  a  religion  of  cleanliness  and  fresh  air. 
This  sometimes  amounted  to  bleakness.  Visitors  slid 
towards  him  over  parquet  floors — and  smoking  was 
strictly  prohibited.  Thick  carpeting  and  upholstery 
he  hated,  for  hygienic  and  asthmatic  reasons. 

He  was  fond  of  recounting  little  incidents  in  his 
own  life  or  in  the  lives  of  his  friends.  He  used,  in 
fact,  to  make  a  story  out  of  an  incident,  rounding 
it  off  artistically.  Here  is  a  typical  example — I  re- 
member it  because  I  heard  him  tell  it  twice — its  sim- 
plicity perhaps  appealed  to  him:  "  The  Spaniards  are 


64      MODERN   MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

still  very  superstitious.  A  friend  of  mine  who  lived 
in  Spain  once  experienced  a  rather  unpleasant  exam- 
ple of  this.  He  was  driving  home  in  his  carriage  one 
day  when  he  passed  a  priest  who  was  toiling  up  a  hill 
with  evident  difficulty.  He  pulled  the  cord  which 
communicated  with  his  coachman  on  the  box  outside, 
and  the  carriage  drew  up  at  the  side  of  the  road.  He 
then  got  out  and  offered  the  priest  a  seat  in  the  car- 
riage as  far  as  he  wanted  to  go.  When  inside,  he 
asked  the  priest  where  he  would  like  to  descend :  the 
priest  told  him,  and  the  conversation  drifted  on  to 
other  things.  At  the  appointed  place,  my  friend 
pulled  the  communication  cord,  the  carriage  stopped, 
and  the  priest  alighted  after  thanking  him  cordially 
for  his  kindness.  Three  days  later,  when  out  driving, 
his  carriage  suddenly  pulled  up  with  a  jolt  and  he 
was  politely  requested  by  someone  to  step  outside  for 
a  few  minutes.  Immediately  his  feet  reached  the 
ground,  his  arms  were  tightly  pinioned  behind  him, 
a  handkerchief  was  tied  over  his  eyes,  another  over 
his  mouth,  and  he  was  inarched  for  some  distance  in 
complete  silence  with  a  hand  of  iron  on  each  arm. 
At  last  they  came  to  a  house,  and  the  door  which 
closed  behind  them  sounded  heavily.  He  was  pushed 
into  a  room  where  he  remained  for  a  short  time  ap- 
parently alone.  In  a  few  minutes,  two  or  three  men 
entered  and  took  him  along  several  passages  into  what 
seemed  to  him  a  large  hall.  Here  his  arms  were  freed 
and  the  bandages  taken  from  his  mouth  and  eyes.  He 
found  himself  in  a  long,  low  room,  lit  by  a  few  candles 
here  and  there,  and  standing  before  three  masked  men 
in  dark  gowns  who  were  seated  at  a  table  draped  in 


SIR   FRANCIS   GALTON  65 

black.  One  of  these  men  had  a  written  scroll  before 
him,  which  he  commenced  to  read  at  once  in  a  hard, 
firm  voice:  '  On  Tuesday  last,  senor,  you  were  on 
infallible  grounds  proved  to  be  in  league  with  the  Evil 
One.  But  inasmuch  as  you  showed  sympathy  with 
our  brother  Resarti,  you  have  been  granted  the  favor 
of  appearing  before  these  holy  fathers,  not  for  the 
object  of  proving  yourself  innocent,  since  that  is  im- 
possible, but  in  order  that  you  may  receive  forgiveness 
by  rendering  up  to  us  the  terms  of  your  secret  com- 
pact.' My  friend,  who  had  up  to  now  regarded  the 
adventure  in  the  light  of  an  amusing  experience  fol- 
lowing on  some  easily  rectifiable  mistake,  now  realized 
that  matters  were  more  serious  than  he  had  imagined. 
" '  What  is  the  nature  of  the  indictment? '  he 
asked. 

'  Perhaps,  senor,  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  repeat 
it  if  I  recall  briefly  the  occurrences  of  these  forty 
minutes  which  our  brother  Resarti  spent  in  your  car- 
riage on  Tuesday  last,'  replied  the  first  speaker. 
*  Please  be  good  enough  to  do  so,'  said  my  friend,  who 
was  beginning  to  feel  decidedly  uneasy.  The  man 
continued  to  read  from  the  paper  before  him :  '  You 
will  remember,  then,  that  while  you  were  both  inside 
the  carriage,  but  not  before,  our  brother  gave  you 
the  name  of  the  hostel  at  which  he  desired  to  alight. 
You  were  unable  to  inform  your  coachman  of  this 
fact  without  first  of  all  leaning  out  of  the  window  and 
speaking  plainly  to  him.  This  you  did  not  do.  No 
sign  of  communication  between  you  and  your  servant 
in  sin  was  made ;  and  yet  the  carriage  stopped  within 
four  feet  of  the  door  at  which  our  brother  requested 


66      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

that  he  might  descend.  These  doings,  senor,  are 
only  possible  among  the  fellows  and  disciples  of 
Satan. 

Galton's  marriage,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  was 
not  a  particularly  happy  one.  His  wife  took  advan- 
tage of  his  essential  kindness  of  heart  and  unselfish 
disposition.  I  have  been  told  that  any  comfort  which 
might  have  given  pleasure  to  his  leisure  hours  was 
often  denied  him  by  her.  Even  the  chairs  in  the 
drawing-room  were  straight-backed  and  hard.  She 
had,  apparently,  a  mania  for  collecting  letters  written 
by  celebrated  people.  At  any  rate  a  couple  of  albums 
crammed  with  autographs  and  letters  (not  all,  by  any 
means,  written  to  her)  were  unearthed  when  Galton 
died.  An  original  despatch  from  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, a  trite  postcard  from  Walter  Pater,  letters 
from  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  a  host  of  other 
famous  people,  were  there.  I  hardly  think  Galton 
could  have  taken  much  interest  in  this  whirl  of  celeb- 
rity hunting.  I  fear  he  must  have  felt  sadly  out  of  it. 

But  his  later  years  were  very  happy  ones.  His 
niece,  Miss  Evelyn  Biggs,  gave  him  the  full  benefit 
of  a  charming  and  invigorating  companionship.  Her 
unselfish  care  and  joy  of  living  helped  in  no  small 
degree  to  make  his  life  at  the  latter  end  one  of  great 
content  and  exceptional  enjoyment.  I  must  quote 
here  from  a  letter  she  sent  me  nine  years  after  his 
death:  "  Uncle  Frank  was  full  of  ready  wit  in  small 
everyday  matters.  We  had  a  cook  from  the  Isle  of 
Man,  and  when  she  had  left  the  room,  after  being 
interviewed  for  the  first  time,  he  gravely  remarked: 
'  I  didn't  see  her  third  leg — did  you  notice  it? '  He 
was  particularly  amusing  in  repartee.  When  he  and 


SIR   FRANCIS    GALTON  67 

Mary  Coleridge  met,  they  were  most  witty  together, 
and  one  was  simply  astonished  at  the  fund  of  wit  and 
learning  of  each.  They  were  the  best  of  friends.  But 
when  Dr.  Lillias  Hamilton  came  to  the  house,  the 
repartee  was  like  lightning;  no  one  spoke  but  these 
two,  and  the  company  laughed  all  the  time  without 
stopping.  It  was  pure  fun,  and  hardly  any  dinner 
was  eaten — even  I  forgot  my  food,  which  is  rare!  " 

Let  me,  finally,  try  to  give  some  idea  of  his  wide 
interests  and  deeper  feelings.  It  was  never  easy  to 
get  him  to  talk  of  things  that  aifected  himself.  He 
preferred  always  to  find  out  what  people  had  to  say 
for  themselves  and  to  keep  the  discussion  well  within 
the  region  of  everyday  happenings.  In  fact  I  only 
got  to  know  him  at  all  intimately  during  the  last  few 
talks  we  had  together,  while  I  was  staying  with  him 
for  two  or  three  days  during  the  winter  of  1909-10 
in  a  house  he  had  taken  at  Haslemere. 

One  day  we  drove  over  to  Tennyson's  house — "  to 
renew  my  memories  of  him,"  he  said.  While  we  stood 
on  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  house,  looking  at  the 
splendid  view,  he  remarked :  "  Tennyson  was  a  great 
poet,  but  his  over-done  popularity  during  his  life- 
time has  cost  him  dear.  People  foolishly  likened  him 
to  Shakespeare — and  the  inevitable  reaction  has  set 
in.  His  worst  poetry  was  invariably  the  most  popu- 
lar; but  he  will  come  into  his  right  place  when  the 
tide  turns.  He  had  more  to  say  than  Swinburne,  but 
Swinburne  will  be  paid  the  price  of  neglect  and  so 
win  the  popularity  that  Tennyson  has  lost."  On  the 
road  we  passed  the  spot  where  Tyndall  lies  buried. 
Galton  told  me  that  Tyndall  had  expressed  a  desire 
to  be  buried  in  unconsecrated  ground  and  had  par- 


68      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

ticularly  requested  that  no  Church  Service  should  be 
said  over  his  body.  He  had  even  charged  Galton 
himself  to  see  that  his  wishes  were  carried  out. 
"  After  a  battle-royal  with  his  widow,"  said  my  uncle, 
"  we  won  the  day."  And  there,  sure  enough,  Tyn- 
dall  lies,  with  no  stone  to  mark  his  resting-place,  since 
he  had  wished  it  so,  in  an  open  field,  his  grave  cov- 
ered with  wild  flowers  and  brambles. 

"  Were  you  glad  you  were  knighted?  "  I  asked  him 
later.  "Yes  and  no,"  he  replied:  "Yes,  because  it 
has  drawn  more  public  attention  to  Eugenics;  no, 
because  it  has  trebled  my  correspondence."  He  did 
not  believe  in  over-straining  the  case  in  favor  of  Eu- 
genics; he  felt  certain  it  would  by  degrees  be  ac- 
cepted on  common-sense  grounds:  "It  should  be 
spread  by  Fabian  methods,  a  gradual  inculcation  of 
its  needs ;  it  would  do  more  harm  than  good  if  forcibly 
pressed  forward  in  its  entirety — we  would  become 
cranks  in  the  public  eye."  Here,  as  always,  he  was 
very  far-seeing.  The  big  Eugenic  Conference  in 
London  after  his  death  was  made  the  subject  of  some 
ridicule,  and  Eugenics  has  already  produced  antag- 
onism (chiefly,  perhaps,  in  the  spasms  of  G.  K.  Ches- 
terton) where,  if  left  to  the  time-influence,  it  would 
be  accepted  as  a  necessary  part  of  social  evolution. 

"  How  is  it,"  I  asked  him  once,  "  that  Bertillon  has 
received  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  finger-print  dis- 
covery, and  you  are  never  mentioned  in  connection 
with  it? " 

"  I  believe,"  he  answered,  "  that  the  man  who  in- 
vents a  thing,  or  the  pioneer  of  a  movement,  never 
gets  the  fame  of  the  man  who  makes  a  practical  ap- 
plication of  the  invention  or  who  opens  out  the  further 


SIR   FRANCIS   GALTON  69 

possibilities  (usually  lucrative)  of  the  discovery.  I 
suggested  to  Bertillon  that  he  should  use  my  finger- 
print theory  to  make  his  method  of  measurements 
doubly  effective.  He  did  not  see  his  way  to  adopt 
my  plan  for  some  time,  but  afterwards  it  became  his 
chief  stock-in-trade;  in  fact  his  own  theories  were  a 
complete  failure  in  many  respects.  The  finger-print 
system  was  afterwards  introduced  into  other  coun- 
tries, but  as  my  own  time  was  then  occupied  with  dif- 
ferent work,  Bertillon  played  the  showman  wherever 
it  went.  In  that  way,  I  suppose,  he  got  nearly  all 
the  kudos  of  the  undertaking  and  gradually  people 
began  to  suppose  the  discovery  his." 

One  evening  I  happened  to  say  that  I  was  becom- 
ing a  Liberal  in  politics,  since  the  Conservatives  didn't 
seem  to  know  what  they  wanted — they  had  no  con- 
structive program.  "  Fancy  being  a  Conservative 
at  your  age !  "  said  he,  laughing.  "  Most  men  begin 
life  as  red-hot  Republicans  and  end  life  as  stiff- 
necked  Tories.  Why,  I  thought  all  the  young  men 
in  the  country  nowadays  were  Socialists.  All  think- 
ing men  change  their  politics,  and  the  majority 
change  them  for  worse.  If  you  are  a  Conservative 
now,  I  shan't  envy  your  fireside  acquaintances  when 
you  are  seventy.  You'll  be  a  blood-red  revolutionist 
at  an  age  when  most  men  are  content  with  the  opin- 
ions of  their  grand-parents!  "  "  Did  you  ever  admire 
any  particular  big-pot  in  the  political  world?"  I 
asked.  "  I'm  afraid,"  he  replied,  "  that  my  interest 
in  politicians  has  always  been  a  phrenological  one. 
Their  views  don't  interest  me  as  much  as  their  heads. 
Gladstone  had  one  of  the  finest  heads  of  any  man  of 
my  time.  He  once  allowed  me  to  measure  it,  and  I 


70      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

told  him  that  there  was  only  one  finer  head  than  his 
in  the  kingdom.  *  Really,'  said  he,  rather  annoyed, 
I  thought,  that  his  head  was  not  as  exceptional  as  his 
oratory,  '  I  would  like  to  meet  the  owner — we  must 
find  him  a  place  in  the  Cabinet — who  is  he? '  *  My- 
self,' I  replied ;  '  your  powers  of  observation  are  not 
acute.'  He  was  amused  at  my  impertinence,  but  I 
noticed  that  my  head  received  his  critical  regard  more 
than  once  before  he  left.  A  few  years  later  I  was  at 
a  dinner  given  by  some  Society  to  the  leading  lights 
of  the  various  professions.  Nearly  opposite  me  sat  a 
man  with  the  most  marvelous  head  I  have  ever  seen 
in  my  life.  I  immediately  asked  my  neighbor  who 
it  was.  *  Henry  Irving,  the  actor,'  I  was  told.  I 
had  never  been  to  the  Lyceum  Theatre,  but,  without 
knowing  it,  Irving  had  made  a  conquest  of  me  at  first 
sight,  and  his  head  did  what  a  stage-version  of  Shake- 
speare could  never  have  done — it  drew  me  to  his 
theater  time  after  time.  But  as  everybody  is  not 
necessarily  a  student  of  phrenology,  I  never  sug- 
gested to  him  that  he  should  take  down  his  advertise- 
ments and  merely  walk  about  the  streets  with  his  hat 
off!" 

I  remember  at  about  that  time  Oscar  Wilde's  works 
had  made  a  great  impression  on  me — his  wit  and  style 
seemed  to  me  inimitable — and  I  asked  Galton  whether 
he  had  ever  met  him. 

:<  I  used  to  see  him  occasionally,  but  I  never  wanted 
to  make  his  acquaintance.  He  annoyed  me  by  posing 
in  elegant  attitudes  at  a  club  I  sometimes  frequented. 
Everything  about  him  seemed  to  denote  a  lazy  bore- 
dom. I  believe  he  was  utterly  insincere." 

This  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  known  him  speak 


71 

harshly  of  anyone,  and  his  manner  surprised  me. 
"  Have  you  read  his  work? "  I  pursued;  "  surely  you 
must  allow  him  genius? — read  this,"  I  added  before 
he  could  reply,  and  I  gave  him  "  The  Soul  of  Man 
under  Socialism." 

But  he  laid  it  aside.  "  Sure  to  be  well  put,"  was 
all  he  said,  dismissing  the  subject  with  a  wave  of  the 
hand.  Strange,  I  thought,  that  so  broad-minded  a 
man  should  allow  personal  dislike  to  interfere  with 
literary  appreciation.  Besides,  humor  was  the  quality 
in  literature  he  prized  the  most.  Coming  back  into 
the  room  a  short  while  after,  I  found  him  reading 
"  The  Soul  of  Man  "  with  evident  interest.  But  I 
did  not  remark  on  it,  thinking  that  to  renew  the  sub- 
ject would  displease  him — he  had  shown  for  the  first 
time  in  my  knowledge  such  obvious  bias.  Hamlet's 
words  came  to  mind.  '  There  is  something  in  this 
more  than  natural,  if  philosophy  could  find  it 
out.  ..."  And  then  in  a  flash  I  remembered  that  he 
came  from  a  Quaker  stock.  So  it  wasn't  altogether 
his  fault. 

Some  months  before  this  time  (I  was  staying  with 
him  early  in  February,  1910)  he  had  picked  up  at 
St.  Jean  de  Luz,  while  on  a  visit  to  the  Continent, 
a  little  piece  of  "  drain-trap  "  (he  called  it)  which 
seemed  to  be  covered  with  the  rust  of  ages.  I  sup- 
pose he  had  found  it  in  some  out-of-the-way  street. 
He  seemed  to  attach  great  value  to  this  bit  of  old 
metal,  regarding  it  in  the  light  of  a  relic,  and  he  used 
it  on  his  desk  as  a  pen-holder.  He  had  tried  without 
success  to  get  it  clean  and  bright,  but  the  rust  had 
bitten  into  it,  and  no  smithy  could  doctor  it  up.  I 
said  that  I  thought  it  could  be  done,  and  he  gave  it 


72      MODERN   MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

me  to  take  away,  not  without  considerable  anxiety  on 
his  part  that  I  should  on  no  account  lose  sight  of  it. 
I  had  it  brightened  up  in  a  motor  workshop,  and 
received  this  very  characteristic  letter  from  him  in 
acknowledgment:  "  1,000  thanks.  The  dear  old  piece 
of  drain-trap  is  now  rendered  beautiful,  and  will 
adorn  my  writing-table  for  the  rest  of  my  working 
life.  I  see  the  marks  upon  it  of  the  grinding  sub- 
stance. This  cast  iron  is,  I  suppose,  of  the  nature  of 
what  is  used  in  the  Navy  for  '  chilled  '  shot  and  armor 
plates.  Its  exceeding  hardness  makes  one  hope  to 
get  further  improvement  in  bettering  steel  tools  (but 
quere).  ..."  At  the  age  of  89  he  was  still  inter- 
ested in  everything  that  could  perplex  or  employ  the 
human  brain,  his  mind  still  open  to  the  possibilities  of 
invention  and  ingenuity,  still  occupied  with  everyday 
matters  which  lesser  men  would  label  insignificant 
and  ignore ! 

The  morning  of  the  day  I  left  we  had  a  last  chat 
together.  Long  before  this  I  had  noticed  that  Shake- 
speare's comedies  (especially  "Henry  IV")  and 
Sheridan's  and  Congreve's  plays  seemed  his  favorite 
reading  for  recreative  purposes,  and  I  wanted  to  find 
out  why  it  was  he  preferred  the  lighter  classics  and 
rarely  paid  much  attention  to  the  deeper  things  in 
literature.  I  asked  him  this,  and  his  reply  was  of 
great  interest.  I  had  never  thought  of  him  as  very 
sensitive,  even  weak,  and  the  added  touch  made  him 
intensely  human  to  me.  "  I  used  to  read  your  favorite 
works  at  one  time,"  he  said,  "  and  they  have  all  af- 
forded me  keen  enjoyment.  But  poetry,  especially 
the  poetry  of  Shakespeare's  great  period — '  Hamlet ' 
and  *  Lear ' — makes  me  sad  and  unhappy  now. 
Shakespearean  tragedy  is  so  real,  so  true,  that  it 


SIR   FRANCIS   GALTON  73 

brings  the  unending  tragedy  of  life  before  my  eyes, 
and  I  have  to  close  the  book  to  keep  a  hold  over  my- 
self. I  am,  alas!  too  much  of  a  sentimentalist  by 
nature,  and  all  through  my  life  I  have  had  to  put 
restraint  on  my  emotions.  Music,  also,  I  avoid  as 
much  as  possible:  it  awakes  memories,  and  mine  are 
naturally  too  keen  to  need  a  stimulus.  Sometimes  I 
come  across  a  simple  lyric  that  I  once  knew  by  heart, 
embedded  in  a  newspaper  article,  and  I  have  to  rid 
myself  of  it  before  I  can  get  to  work.  .  .  .  Humor, 
on  the  other  hand,  invigorates  me  wonderfully.  I 
simply  revel  in  Falstaff,  and  Sheridan's  wit  gives  me 
constant  delight,  though  Moliere  is  my  favorite  after 
Shakespeare."  He  spoke  all  this  in  a  simple  unaf- 
fected manner,  though  he  broke  off  once  and  gazed 
into  the  fire  for  a  moment. 

Glancing  back  at  him  there  by  the  fire,  with  the 
glow  of  it  on  his  face,  I  thought  again  of  the  sitting 
figure  of  Napoleon  at  Versailles :  the  likeness  seemed 
stronger  than  ever.  And  yet,  what  a  contrast !  The 
very  idea  was  unthinkable.  ...  I  never  saw  him 
again,  but  my  memory  of  him  remains,  clear  and  un- 
dimmed  with  the  passage  of  time. 

As  a  man  lives,  so  does  he  die.  Charles  II  as  wit, 
Oscar  Wilde  as  humorist,  lived  up  to  their  reputa- 
tions at  the  final  Exit.  And  now  I  must  add  another 
characteristic  end  to  the  many  that  have  gone  before. 
When  Galton  was  being  shown  over  the  house  he 
eventually  took  at  Grayshott  for  the  winter  of 
1910-11,  and  in  which  he  died  a  month  or  so  after  his 
arrival,  he  remarked  on  reaching  the  top  of  the  stairs 
leading  to  his  bedroom:  "  This  will  be  an  awkward 
corner  to  get  my  coffin  round." 

Practical  io  the  last.  .  .  . 


IV 
SIR  GEORGE  ALEXANDER 

THE  letters  G.  A.,  in  big,  bold  capitals,  which  ap- 
peared for  so  many  years  in  gilt  on  portions  of  the 
St.  James's  Theatre,  in  type  on  its  programs,  and 
eventually  in  sculpture  over  the  portal  to  his  house 
at  Chorley  Wood,  give  us  a  first-rate  index  to  the 
man,  George  Alexander,  his  mind  and  art.  They 
stood  both  for  his  success  and  the  method  whereby  it 
was  attained.  He  was  the  best  and  most  typical  prod- 
uct of  London  Society  for  twenty-five  years  before 
August,  1914.  He  catered  to  the  tastes  and  foibles 
of  that  Society  in  its  theater-going  just  as  the  man- 
ager of  the  Savoy  Hotel  catered  to  the  tastes  and 
foibles  of  that  Society  in  its  restaurant -going;  and 
exactly  in  so  far  as  such  drama  was  more  or  less  im- 
portant than  such  tables  d'hote,  was  the  manager  of 
the  St.  James's  Theatre  more  or  less  important  than 
the  manager  of  the  Savoy  Hotel.  He  produced  plays 
that  were  correctly  risky,  and  they  became  the  talk  of 
a  social  world  that  was  correctly  risky.  He  seldom 
deviated  one  hair's  breadth  from  the  safe  path  of  cor- 
rect riskiness. 

For  the  most  part,  his  theater  mirrored  to  absolute 
perfection  the  people  who  patronized  its  stalls.  He 
knew,  none  better,  that  the  stalls  enjoyed  the  gilded 
pill  of  romance  about  themselves,  and  that  the  gallery 
loved  to  see  the  stalls  swallow  it.  No  real  medicine 

74 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER          75 

was  possible,  for  his  audiences  wouldn't  pay  to  be 
choked  or  for  the  privilege  of  having  a  nasty  taste  in 
the  mouth.  The  light  parts  had  to  be  charmingly 
playful,  the  serious  parts  had  to  be  pleasantly  senti- 
mental, and  the  plot  had  to  savor  of  scandal  without 
being  in  any  way  truthfully  objectionable.  Adultery 
was  invariably  touched  on  and  inevitably  touched  up. 
Murder,  suicide  and  dipsomania  conformed  to  the 
limits  of  the  respectable  and  were  made  unshockingly 
dramatic.  The  working  classes  were  seldom,  if  ever, 
introduced.  Significant  social  problems  were  care- 
fully avoided.  It  was  the  drama  of  the  genteel — the 
Apotheosis  of  the  Butterfly.  In  a  commercial  age, 
he  adhered  strictly  to  commercial  plays ;  the  box  office 
receipts  were  his  justification  and  his  reward.  His 
dramas  were  triumphs  of  monetary  speculation:  they 
were  quite  innocent  of  mental  speculation.  Pinero 
was  his  god;  Wilde  was  his  rather  uncertain  arch- 
angel. 

The  question  naturally  arises:  what  did  he  do  for 
the  stage  worthy  of  record?  I  think  his  public  fame 
will  rest  entirely  on  the  fact  that  he  produced  the 
greatest  farcical  comedy  in  the  English  language; 
while  to  his  brother-artists  he  was  an  ideal  actor- 
manager. 

Firstly,  a  word  on  his  public  work.  Not  to  be  out 
of  the  running,  he  produced  two  Shakespearean 
plays;  but  owing  to  his  infallible  sense  of  what  was, 
or  should  have  been,  popular,  he  picked  on  Shake- 
speare's most  commonplace,  conventional,  Victorian 
pieces — "  As  You  Like  It "  and  "  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing."  No  comment  is  necessary.  Then,  not  to 
be  behind  a  time  that  was  itself  behind  the  times,  he 


76      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

gave  a  series  of  Pineronian  masterpieces,  beginning 
with  that  very  unmasterly  experiment  "  The  Second 
Mrs.  Tanqueray  "  (which  was  simply  the  St.  James's 
version  of  what  I  should  like  to  term  a  Melvillo- 
drama)  and  consummating  the  series  with  the  best 
example  of  a  "  well-made  "  play  in  existence—  "  His 
House  In  Order  " — which  a  pseudo-religious  theater- 
going public  found  altogether  satisfactory.  Pinero 
exhausted  the  obvious  on  the  boards  of  the  St.  James's 
Theatre.  He  was,  I  believe,  the  least  spontaneous 
writer  who  ever  attempted  emotion  in  drama — and 
George  Alexander  "  produced  "  him  to  perfection. 

Leaving  Shakespeare  and  Pinero  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, therefore — since  the  Shakespearean  productions 
were  not  sufficiently  important  to  count  and  none  of 
Pinero's  plays  count  at  all — we  come  to  Oscar  Wilde, 
whose  master-work,  "  The  Importance  of  being  Ear- 
nest," is  unique  on  the  stage  of  this  or  any  other  coun- 
try. A  great  deal  of  nonsense  has  been  talked  at  one 
time  or  another  about  Wilde's  place  in  literature. 
The  commonest  form  of  nonsense  talked  about  his 
plays  is  that  they  stand  in  the  direct  line  of  artificial 
comedy,  established  in  this  country  by  Congreve  and 
Sheridan.  This  is  so  ridiculously  untrue  that  I  am 
amazed  no  one  has  had  the  ordinary  critical  ability  to 
contradict  it.  Wilde  brought  to  drama  a  humor  and 
humanity  which  they  utterly  lacked.  One  laughs  at 
their  characters  but  with  his.  They  were  objective 
artists;  he  was  a  subjective  artist.  His  plays  contain 
a  very  definite  moral  criticism ;  their  plays  are  merely 
immoral  curiosities.  They  catalogued  but  did  not 
comment,  except  superficially.  His  wit  sparkled 


SIR    GEORGE    ALEXANDER  77 

from  a  higher  intellectual  level  than  theirs,  and  his 
humanity  lent  him  emotion  and  a  sense  of  the  deeper 
things  in  life ;  while  they  never  went  beneath  the  sur- 
face, skimming  lightly  on  the  crystal  ice  that  froze 
over  the  shallows  of  existence.  In  short,  their  comedy 
glitters  from  without,  while  his  comedy  glows  from 
within. 

But  though  Wilde  was  the  only  dealer  in  the  Com- 
edy of  Manners  who  did  not  turn  it  into  a  mannerism 
of  comedy,  there  is  some  truth  in  the  statement  that 
he  followed  the  Congreve-Sheridan  tradition  in  his 
three  serio-comedies,  if  only  because  they  are  pri- 
marily witty  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  literary 
fashion-plates  of  the  eight een-nineties.  When,  how- 
ever, he  wrote  "  The  Importance  of  being  Earnest," 
he  broke  away  even  from  that  shadowy  tradition  and 
produced  a  work  that  will  be  the  unending  delight  of 
"  states  unborn  and  accents  yet  unknown."  Its  wit  is 
only  accidental — humor,  a  much  greater  thing,  per- 
meates it.  It  is  the  only  work  of  its  kind  that  stands 
quite  outside  criticism.  It  reveals  the  most  enter- 
taining personality  in  literary  history — and  there  is 
simply  nothing  more  to  be  said  about  it. 

Now  to  Alexander  belongs  the  certain  honor,  then 
a  risky  one,  of  introducing  Wilde  as  a  dramatist  to 
the  public,  and  the  uncertain  honor,  then  a  correct 
one,  of  dropping  the  curtain  on  him  when  Society  de- 
cided it  should  be  dropped.  Also,  the  ease  and  polish, 
the  finish,  of  Alexander's  work  as  actor  and  producer 
were  just  the  qualities  for  these  dramas;  and  if  Wilde 
does,  as  I  fear,  become  a  classic — even  if,  as  I  hope, 
he  keeps  his  freshness  for  the  delight,  but  not  the 


78      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

model-hunters,  of  future  generations — then  George 
Alexander  will  be  held  in  grateful  memory  as  the 
man  who  paid  him  first  tribute. 

One  other  thing  happened  during  his  reign  at  the 
St.  James's  which  I  mustn't  neglect  to  mention.  This 
was  something  right  off  his  too- well-beaten  track. 
He  produced  the  most  deliciously  beautiful  blank- 
verse  play  since  Shakespeare:  Stephen  Phillips's 
"  Paolo  and  Francesca."  But  as  blank-verse  drama 
is  a  played-out  fashion  ( Shakespeare  having  made  it 
fashionable  and  having  played  it  out),  Alexander's 
fame  as  an  actor-manager  must  stand  or  fall  with 
Wilde's  fame  as  a  dramatist. 

Imaginatively  and  artistically  Alexander  was  im- 
mature. He  had,  of  course,  the  business  instinct  very 
strongly  developed,  knew  as  a  rule  whether  a  play 
would  be  a  money-maker  or  not,  but  resolutely  turned 
his  back  on  the  intellectual  movement  in  the  theater 
that  was  going  on  all  round  him.  He  was  simply 
incapable  of  original  judgment  on  the  plays  he  pro- 
duced himself  or  the  plays  anyone  else  produced.  He 
had  one  word,  "  charming,"  to  express  his  likes,  and 
one  word,  "  unpleasant,"  to  express  his  dislikes.  All 
Shakespeare,  from  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  " 
to  "  King  Lear,"  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  "  charm- 
ing." All  Shaw  was,  equally  as  a  matter  of  course, 
"  unpleasant."  "  The  Blue  Bird,"  "  Charley's  Aunt," 
"  (Edipus  Rex,"  the  latest  Revue  and  "  The  Silver 
Box  "  were  all  "  charming."  Ibsen  in  general  was 
"  unpleasant,"  and  "  Ghosts  "  in  particular  was  "  dis- 
gusting." I  only  heard  him  use  the  last  word  that 
once.  He  rarely  committed  himself  so  far.  His  lan- 
guage, like  himself,  was  nothing  if  not  genteel.  He 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER  79 

never  gave  himself  away,  never  stepped  outside  the 
limits  of  correct  physical  deportment  and  perfect 
mental  decorum.  His  mind  and  his  trousers  were 
always  immaculately  pressed  and  creased.  That  his 
mind  should  move  freely  and  unconventionally,  or 
that  his  trousers  should  become  baggy  and  unfashion- 
able, was  inconceivable.  In  method  and  in  manner  he 
was  spick-and-span. 

His  curious  conservatism  and  lack  of  individual 
taste  were  amazingly  illustrated  in  his  house  at 
Chorley  Wood,  where  the  furniture  was  all  arranged 
exactly  as  in  a  scene  of  a  Pinero  drama.  While  sit- 
ting on  a  perfect  specimen  of  Tottenham  Court  Road 
art,  I  couldn't  help  feeling  that  the  curtain  might  at 
any  moment  go  up,  when  everyone  would  be  expected 
to  behave  in  a  proper  Tanqueray  manner. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  he  became  regretful 
and  reminiscential.  He  was  sorry,  for  example,  that 
lie  had  treated  Oscar  Wilde  so  badly,  and  more  and 
more  he  lapsed  sentimentally  towards  past  achieve- 
ments and  the  memory  of  earlier  things.  He  tried  to 
make  up  for  the  former  by  leaving  at  his  death  the 
rights  of  "  Lady  Windermere's  Fan  "  and  "  The  Im- 
portance of  being  Earnest  "  to  Wilde's  children,  hav- 
ing previously  made  a  fortune  out  of  them  for  him- 
self; and  when  I  remarked  one  evening  that  the  pit 
queue  was  excellent,  I  caught  him  bemoaning  his 
halcyon  days:  "  Ah!  "  he  sighed,  "  you  would  not  say 
that  if  you  had  been  with  me  in  *  The  Prisoner  of 
Zenda.'  Then  the  queues  stretched  into  St.  James's 
Street."  I  ought  perhaps  to  add  that  "  The  Prisoner 
of  Zenda  "  was  a  "  charming  "  play. 

But  I  want  to  do  justice  to  Alexander.    He  was  at 


80      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

his  very  best  on  a  committee.  It  is  as  a  committee- 
worker  that  I  wish  to  commemorate  him.  He  was  a 
flawless  committee  man.  He  had  a  committee  tem- 
perament, if  I  may  so  express  it  without  seeming  to 
disparage  a  really  remarkable  gift.  Most  committees 
are,  as  everyone  knows,  self-admiration  associations. 
The  chief  point  about  them  is  the  unlimited  love  each 
member  has  for  himself  and  his  own  obsolete  or  ob- 
structive ideas.  As  I  knew  them,  theatrical  commit- 
tees without  Alexander  were  far  more  entertaining 
than  the  average  plays  produced  by  the  "  stars  "  who 
sat  on  them.  With  him,  they  were  undramatically 
brief  and  business-like ;  everything  was  done  with  the 
least  possible  amount  of  talk,  difficulties  were  cleared 
away  in  a  moment,  and  whole  heaps  of  impossible 
nonsense  disappeared  from  agenda  papers  and  minute 
books.  In  fact,  he  converted  them  from  the  usual 
lengthy  and  amusing  absurdities  into  unusually  dry 
and  short-lived  proceedings.  He  introduced  method 
and  work  into  a  world  of  glorified  footledom.  His 
idea  when  attending  a  committe  meeting  was  that 
something  had  to  be  done,  and  he  did  it.  Other  peo- 
ple considered  that  something  had  to  be  talked  about, 
and  they  chattered — mostly  about  themselves. 

Luckily  I  am  able  to  show  him  at  work  on  the  stiff- 
est  committee  job,  as  he  afterwards  confessed  to  me, 
that  he  had  ever  undertaken;  and  in  doing  so,  I  can 
place  his  bearing  and  behavior  side  by  side  with  that 
of  his  brother-artists.  He  comes  out  well  in  the  con- 
trast. 

Alexander  was  Chairman,  and  I  was  Secretary,  of 
the  organizing  committee  for  the  Shakespeare  Ter- 
centenary Performance  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  in 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER  81 

1916.  All  the  leading  actors  of  the  day  were  on  that 
committee.  One  or  two  never  came  to  the  meetings 
at  all,  notably  Tree,  the  President,  who  was  in  Amer- 
ica at  the  time;  but  Alexander  was  the  only  member 
except  myself  who  never  missed  a  single  meeting. 
There  were,  besides,  several  sub-committees,  the  meet- 
ings of  which  we  both  regularly  attended,  dealing  with 
such  matters  as  the  casting  of  the  play  ("Julius 
Csesar  "),  the  casting  of  the  tableaux,  the  music,  the 
sale  of  programs,  and  so  on.  It  was  felt  an  honor  by 
nearly  everyone  to  be  connected  in  any  way,  however 
small,  with  such  a  memorable  affair,  and  every  actor 
who  was  not  serving  out  of  England  at  the  time  wil- 
lingly offered  his  services  in  any  humble  capacity  de- 
signed for  him  by  the  committee.  Every  actor,  that 
is,  except  the  so-called  or  self-styled  "  stars." 

George  Alexander  flung  himself,  heart  and  soul, 
into  the  business,  in  spite  of  many  painful  bouts  of 
the  illness  that  eventually  killed  him.  He  worked, 
he  drudged,  unceasingly.  Practically  the  whole  thing 
was  done  off  his  own  bat — the  committee  of  famous 
actors  was  merely  an  obstruction.  When  his  ear  was 
not  glued  to  the  telephone,  he  was  writing  letters, 
seeing  people,  or  talking  matters  over  with  me.  At 
any  time — morning,  afternoon,  and  at  night  during 
the  spasmodic  intervals  of  his  own  performances — he 
would  be  at  my  disposal,  patiently  listening  to  the 
hundred  and  one  points  that  cropped  up  almost 
hourly,  advising,  listening  to  advice,  explaining,  lis- 
tening to  explanations,  with  an  untiring  courtesy, 
humor  and  charm  quite  beyond  any  praise  of  mine. 
His  business  capacity  throughout  was  only  equaled 
by  his  imperturbability  and  his  sound  common-sense. 


82      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

I  never  knew  him  give  an  opinion  that  was  not  incom- 
parably more  lucid,  admirable,  and  in  the  event  more 
practical,  than  that  of  anyone  else  on  the  various 
committees  he  served  with.  The  real  work  of  the 
world  is  done  by  committees,  and  Alexander  was  a 
born  world-worker.  It  was  a  pity  his  activities  were 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  stage.  He  had  the  self- 
effacing  conscientiousness  of  a  great  statesman,  while 
most  of  his  brother-managers  had  the  self -glorifying 
unscrupulousness  which  distinguishes  our  front- 
benchers and  politicians. 

The  first  decision  Alexander  came  to,  as  chairman 
of  the  casting  sub-committee,  was  to  cut  himself  com- 
pletely out  of  the  cast.  He  would,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  have  played  Brutus  better  than  anyone,  and  he 
would  have  enjoyed  doing  it,  but  he  decided  to  take 
no  part  in  it  on  the  ground  that  the  younger  men 
should  be  given  a  chance.  He  suggested  Matheson 
Lang  for  Brutus  and  the  committee  agreed,  though 
without  much  enthusiasm  from  one  or  two  quarters. 
Thereafter  it  was  adumbrated  that  Mr.  Arthur 
Bourchier  felt  slighted  at  being  passed  over,  he  hav- 
ing already  played  the  part  with  Sir  Herbert  Tree 
at  His  Majesty's  Theatre,  receiving  high  praise  for 
his  performance  from  all  those  who  believed  he  might 
again  go  into  management  on  his  own  account  and 
be  of  some  use  to  them.  Delicately,  therefore,  Mr. 
Bourchier  absented  himself  from  the  next  meeting  of 
the  casting  committee,  and  the  crisis  was  discussed. 

"  I  can't  see  him  in  the  part,  myself,"  said  Alex- 
ander. "  Nor  can  anyone  else,"  said  H.  B.  Irving. 
"  Except  himself,"  chipped  in  Du  Maurier.  Every- 
one agreed  finally  that  he  was  the  very  last  man  for 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER  83 

the  part — and  everyone  agreed  finally  that  he  must 
be  cast  for  it.  "  We  mustn't  have  bad  feeling  on  the 
committee,"  Alexander  summed  up,  "  so  I'm  afraid 
there's  only  one  thing  for  it:  give  him  the  part  and 
he'll  help  us  on  the  committee,  don't  give  it  him  and 
we'll  never  hear  the  end  of  it."  The  general  feeling 
of  the  committee  being  that  matters  would  run  more 
smoothly  with  Bourchier  soothed  by  Brutus  than  ruf- 
fled by  Flavius  or  Marullus,  it  was  agreed  that  the 
part  should  be  offered  him.  (Note.  Thus  placated, 
he  literally  ate  out  of  the  committee's  hands  thence- 
forward. ) 

Next  came  the  question  of  Marc  Antony.  Alex- 
ander said  "  Henry  Ainley."  After  the  Bourchier 
episode  everyone  agreed  hastily,  almost  falling  over 
one  another  in  their  excitement  to  eclipse  themselves 
utterly.  There  was,  for  a  moment,  a  perfect  craze 
for  self -suppression.  "  What  about  Cassius?  "  que- 
ried Sir  George.  "  I  suggest  Harry,"  he  continued, 
turning  to  H.  B.  Irving.  'Yes,  yes,  admirable," 
murmured  the  committee.  "  No,  no,  what  of  the 
younger  men?  "  risked  H.  B.  It  certainly  was  a  risk, 
because  the  rest  of  the  committee  were  beginning  to 
wonder  what  they  would  be  doing  when  all  the  fat 
parts  had  been  bestowed.  The  committee  murmured 
correct  responses,  but  the  post-Bourchier  enthusiasm 
was  noticeably  on  the  wane;  so,  veering  to  the  only 
quite  safe  point  on  the  compass,  H.  B.  asked  Alex- 
ander :  "  Do  you  really  think  it  would  be  best  ?  "  And, 
comforted  by  the  latter's  reply,  he  quickly  accepted 
in  the  following  well-chosen  words :  "  I  shall  try  to 
deserve  the  honor  you  all  do  me,  but  I  will  gladly 
retire  in  favor  of  anyone  more  worthy  than  I — and 


84      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

there  are  many."  No  one  feeling  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion, Alexander  rapidly  went  on  with  the  casting.  "  I 
think,"  he  said,  "  that  I  am  not  only  voicing  the  opin- 
ion of  the  committee  but  of  the  whole  theatrical  pro- 
fession, as  well  as  the  general  public,  when  I  say  that 
Frank  Benson  should  play  the  title-role."  This  time 
there  was  manifested  quite  honest  enthusiasm,  not 
only  because  Frank  had  no  enemies,  but  also  because 
the  part  of  Julius  Caesar  is  the  most  thankless  title- 
role  in  the  whole  body  of  English  dramatic  art,  and 
everyone  knew  that  dear  old  Benson  couldn't  possibly 
out-mouth  Csesar's  mouthing.  It  was  a  piece  of  cast- 
ing both  safe  and  popular.  Also  no  member  of  the 
committee  hankered  after  the  part.  Benson  bowed 
his  head  gracefully  before  the  storm  of  eager  gratula- 
tion,  and  accepted  his  fate  with  becoming  modesty 
and  thankfulness. 

Mutually  complimentary  speeches  having  been 
given  and  received,  there  was  a  lull,  at  the  end  of 
which  Du  Maurier  asked  to  be  put  down  for  one  of 
the  citizens.  This  terrific  act  of  self-abasement  sent 
a  shudder  through  everybody  present.  The  tension 
was  increased  when  Charles  Hawtrey  said  that  he 
would  "  walk-on."  Everyone  was,  of  course,  thank- 
ful they  had  not  suggested  themselves  for  serious 
parts,  but  for  decency's  sake  it  was  generally  felt 
they  should  have  kept  silent  and  "  let  determined 
things  to  destiny  hold  unbewailed  their  way."  But 
it  is  a  wonderful  and  beautiful  thing  to  see  a  great 
man  humbling  himself,  for  in  few  other  ways  can  he 
be  so  exalted.  Curiously  enough,  however,  the  dis- 
ease is  not  catching,  and  the  rest  of  the  committee 
regarded  the  action  of  these  two  in  the  light  of  a  joke, 


SIR    GEORGE   ALEXANDER  85 

quite  characteristic  of  both  comedians.  I  solemnly 
entered  their  names  under  the  heading  of  "  Citizens 
with  lines  "  (i.e.  lines  supplied  by  Shakespeare,  not 
those  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  incoherent  if 
articulate  mob)  and  the  serious  business  of  the  meet- 
ing was  resumed. 

Casca  was  the  next  part  to  be  cast.  Everyone 
agreed  that  it  should  be  given  to  a  corpulent  member 
of  the  fraternity.  Someone  said  (I  think  it  was  Ben 
Greet,  but  my  notes  do  not  help  me  here)  that  this 
was  the  part  Bourchier  ought  to  play.  Sensation. 
Alexander  emphatically  intervened.  '  That's  already 
settled  by  vote  of  the  committee,"  he  said,  scenting 
the  danger;  "  we  must  think  of  someone  else." 

'  Who  has  the  larger  belly — Asche  or  Calvert?  " 
asked  Hawtrey.  The  subject  of  stomachs  was  care- 
fully gone  into,  and  Oscar  Asche  gained  the  suffrages 
of  the  majority.  He  was  duly  cast  for  the  part. 

There  now  only  remained  the  subsidiary  parts. 
The  final  decision  as  to  these  was  left  to  Alexander, 
but  a  number  of  names  were  definitely  pronounced 
worthy  of  inclusion,  among  others  Martin  Harvey 
and  Fred  Terry,  neither  of  whom  was  present. 

Finally  I  read  several  letters.  One  of  them  was 
from  Godfrey  Tearle,  begging  to  be  allowed  to  take 
any  part,  long  or  short,  in  the  performance,  and  offer- 
ing his  services  as  an  assistant  stage-manager,  or  in 
any  other  drudging  capacity.  Charles  Hawtrey 
promptly  objected  on  the  ground  that  Tearle  was 
not  in  khaki.  "  I,"  said  he,  "  will  sever  my  connec- 
tion with  the  whole  affair  if  Tearle  is  allowed  to  do 
anything."  This  virtuous  and  patriotic  sentiment, 
coming  as  it  did  from  a  man  of  such  high  standing 


86      MODERN   MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

in  his  profession,  was  perforce  echoed  by  his  com- 
rades, if  somewhat  shamefacedly  by  the  younger  ones, 
who  felt  they  themselves  might  be  called  to  the  colors 
if  the  war  went  on  long  enough.  But  Hawtrey,  in 
the  full  security  of  his  age,  bated  no  jot  of  his  martial 
vigor.  The  fact  that  "  Dear  Old  Charley  "  had  been 
through  the  Bankruptcy  Courts  was  a  feather  in  the 
scale  against  the  immense  issues  now  involved,  and 
Godfrey  Tearle  was  sacrificed  by  the  committee  on 
the  altar  of  Hawtrey's  civic  morality. 

Having  thus  satisfied  their  consciences,  both  by  the 
work  they  imagined  they  had  done  and  the  patriotic 
tinge  that  had  been  imparted  to  their  disinterested 
endeavors,  the  committee  broke  up.  It  is  hardly  nec- 
essary to  add  that  George  Alexander  had  guided  and 
inspired  all  the  work  except  the  black-balling  episode 
just  related. 

Fred  Terry  and  Martin  Harvey  answered  the  invi- 
tation of  the  committee  to  take  part  in  the  perform- 
ance, the  former  stating  that  he  was  on  tour  and 
couldn't  give  the  necessary  time  to  rehearsals,  the 
latter  by  expressing  his  surprise  that  he  hadn't  been 
cast  for  Antony.  His  services  to  Shakespeare  and 
his  prestige  as  an  actor,  he  said,  entitled  him  to  the 
part.  Under  the  circumstances  he  regretted  he 
couldn't  associate  himself  with  the  proceedings.  I 
understand  that  our  leading  actors  will  unhesitatingly 
sacrifice  everything  to  Shakespeare — except  the  right 
to  play  his  leading  parts.  It  is,  you  see,  merely  a 
question  of  prestige,  which  must  on  no  account  be  con- 
fused with  vanity  or  any  such  common  failing. 

Poor  old  G.  A.,  as  we  used  to  call  him.  He  had  his 
share  of  this  sort  of  thing  all  through  those  prepara- 


SIR    GEORGE   ALEXANDER          87 

tory  weeks.  I  remember  he  was  worried  to  death  by 
Raymond  Roze,  who  asked  if  he  could  conduct  his 
own  music  to  "  Julius  Cassar,"  Permission  being 
granted,  Roze  pestered  Alexander,  day  in,  day  out, 
for  an  increase  in  the  orchestra.  "  My  work,  my  posi- 
tion "  (he  meant  prestige)  "  demand  it,"  he  said. 
Nothing  short  of  converting  the  entire  auditorium  as 
well  as  the  stage  into  a  gigantic  orchestra  would  have 
pleased  him. 

Then  there  was  Lady  Alexander  with  her  "  stunts," 
one  of  which  was  to  provide  beautiful  dresses  ("  uni- 
forms "  she  called  them)  for  the  program  sellers. 
This  would  have  probably  swallowed  up  all  the  profits 
of  the  performance.  Then  there  were  the  aged  actor- 
knights,  Bancroft,  Hare  and  Wyndham,  and  their 
unknighted  contemporary  Kendal,  who  wanted  the 
show  to  be  run  their  way,  which  would  have  resulted 
in  their  all  pulling  different  ways,  plus  an  indefinite 
postponement  of  the  Tercentenary  Celebration  of 
Shakespeare's  death  till  it  was  about  time  to  celebrate 
the  Quatercentenary  of  his  birth. 

Also,  we  received  a  letter  from  Miss  Marie  Corelli. 
It  was  a  gem.  It  should  have  been  printed  and  cir- 
culated with  an  edition  de  luxe  of  her  complete  works, 
thus  ensuring  the  continued  support  of  the  great 
Caine-Corelli  public.  In  it  she  said  that  a  special 
grand-tier  box  should  have  been  reserved  for  her. 
Why  wasn't  it?  It  should  have  been  the  best  box  in 
the  house  after  (loyal  woman!)  the  Royal  Box.  It 
was  due  to  her  position  (or  did  she  say  prestige?)  as 
the  leading  female  novelist  of  the  age.  She  regarded 
the  omission  as  a  decided  slur  on  her  qualities  as  an 
artist.  She  might,  in  a  sense,  she  said,  almost  be 


88      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

called  America's  representative  on  the  occasion,  since 
an  influential  U.S.  paper  had  asked  her  to  describe 
the  event  fully.  Did  we  realize  that  in  not  giving 
her  the  best  box  we  were  risking  a  rupture  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  at  a  crucial  mo- 
ment in  the  former's  fortunes?  The  result  of  the  war 
might  be  said  to  depend  upon  that  box,  etc.,  etc.  In 
conclusion,  she  washed  her  hands  of  the  whole  matter. 
She  would  not  come  now  if  we  went  on  our  bended 
knees.  If  America  declared  war  on  England,  we 
could  thank  ourselves  for  having  provided  the  casus 
belli,  as  the  decisive  factor  would  be  the  box,  and  so 
forth  and  so  on.  The  foregoing  may  not  be  an  accu- 
rate transcription,  but  it  very  faithfully  renders  the 
tone  of  Miss  Corelli's  letter.  It  was  all  very,  very 
terrible.  We  had  heard  the  lady  was  an  author  of 
great  "  cutting  "  power.  This  time  she  had  cut,  and 
cut,  and  come  again! 

Lastly — yes,  for  purely  artistic  purposes  it  must 
be  lastly — there  was  the  great  Tree  scene.  I  call  it 
the  great  Tree  scene  because  Herbert  Beerbohm  was 
undoubtedly  the  protagonist,  though  he  didn't  per- 
sonally act  a  part  in  it.  Quite  definitely  he  was  the 
hero,  but  it  was  his  Lady  who  daubed  his  statue. 

One  day,  while  I  was  working  in  my  office  at  the 
St.  James's  Theatre,  I  received  an  urgent  request  to 
go  up  and  see  Sir  George.  I  found  him  walking  up 
and  down  his  room.  He  looked  careworn  and  seemed 
to  have  suddenly  put  a  dozen  years  on  to  his  age.  My 
heart  went  out  to  him  as  I  realized  that,  between  us, 
we  were  killing  him  before  his  time.  From  that  mo- 
ment I  decided  to  take  as  few  of  my  own  secretarial 
worries  to  him  as  possible.  I  am  glad  to  say  I  kept  to 


SIR    GEORGE    ALEXANDER  89 

my  decision,  though  I  got  into  hot  water  on  one  or 
two  later  occasions  for  having  acted  on  my  own  re- 
sponsibility. 

From  the  worried  look  on  his  face  as  he  paced  to 
and  fro  I  guessed  that  something  quite  out  of  the 
common  had  occurred.  I  was  both  right  and  wrong. 
What  had  happened  was  not  quite  out  of  the  common, 
because  it  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  frequently  occurs 
in  organizing  big  theatrical  entertainments.  But  the 
fuss  that  had  been  made  out  of  a  tiny  and  easily 
rectifiable  slip  was,  I  am  glad  to  say,  most  uncommon. 
In  sending  out  the  preliminary  notices  to  the  press,  I 
had  forgotten  to  mention  that  the  scenery  and  cos- 
tumes for  "  Julius  Caesar  "  were  being  lent  by  Sir 
Herbert  Tree.  That  was  all.  But  it  cost  the  already 
weary  and  over-worked  chairman  a  very  painful  forty 
minutes  on  the  telephone.  I  must  partly  imagine  the 
details  of  the  scene,  the  main  points  of  which  Alex- 
ander there  and  then  gave  me.  I  fully  realize  that 
only  Dickens  could  do  justice  to  the  thing,  but  that 
does  not  absolve  me  from  doing  my  best. 

Lady  Tree,  with  her  distinguished  husband  en- 
gaged in  cinema  work  on  the  far  side  of  America, 
naturally  felt  that  she  was  guardian  of  the  family's 
fair  name  in  the  other  four  continents.  With  a  due 
sense  of  her  far-reaching  responsibilities,  she  had  that 
morning  digested  "  The  Times  "  with  her  eggs  and 
bacon.  To  do  her  justice,  we  must  assume  that  the 
list  of  casualties  from  the  various  fronts  that  morning 
was  not  more  than  ordinarily  high.  At  any  rate  she 
did  not  waste  much  time  over  them.  Her  eye  caught 
and  was  held  by  a  paragraph  headed  "  Shakespeare 
Tercentenary  Commemoration  Performance."  Gott 


90      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

im  Himmel!  There  was  no  mention  in  it  of  Herbert. 
True,  it  was  merely  a  preliminary  puff,  but  Herbert's 
name  should  not  only  be  puffed  but  blown  at  all  times 
and  in  all  seasons.  Alexander  told  me  that  by  the 
time  she  had  got  through  to  him  on  the  'phone,  she 
was  nearly  speechless  and  IT  (the  paragraph)  was 
in  capital  letters.  He  naturally  thought  at  first  that 
"  it  "  had  reference  to  the  war,  and  upon  being  asked 
breathlessly  by  her  whether  he  had  seen  "  it,"  he 
glanced  out  of  the  window  and  up  at  the  sky,  expect- 
ing to  see  a  super-Zeppelin  dropping  bombs  as  big  as 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 

Eventually,  however,  he  rose  to  the  occasion,  and 
for  well  over  half  an  hour  the  following  piece  of  dia- 
logue was  repeated  ad  nauseam: 

LADY  TREE. — It's  dreadful  to  think  of  poor  dear 
Herbert  being  left  out.  He's  so  sensitive.  He'll  feel 
it  was  done  on  purpose. 

ALEXANDER. — No,  no,  I  assure  you 

LADY  TREE. — But  can't  something  be  done  at  once? 

ALEXANDER. — Well,  I'm  afraid  we  can't  suppress 
the  morning  papers,  but  I  promise  to 

LADY  TREE. — It's  awful.  It  really  is.  You  must 
do  something  this  very  minute. 

ALEXANDER. — Certainly ;  I'll  arrange  for— 

LADY  TREE. — What  on  earth  will  people  think? 
Don't  you  see  that  this  paragraph  must  be  stopped 
now? 

ALEXANDER. — I'm  really  more  sorry  than  I  can  say. 
I  will- 

LADY  TREE. — I  don't  know  what  the  Prime  Min- 
ister will  say.  I  hardly  dare  speak  to  him  about  it. 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER  91 

ALEXANDER. — Xo,  please  don't.    Believe  me 

LADY  TREE. — It  has  upset  me.  I  would  rather 
anything  happened  but  this.  It's  really  most  un- 
chivalrous  of  you. 

ALEXANDER. — Now  I  beg  you  to  leave  this  to  me. 
I  promise  faithfully 

LADY  TREE. — Oh,  dear!  Oh,  dear!  It  doesn't  bear 
thinking  about.  For  Herbert's  sake  you  must  do 
something  immediately.  Please,  please.  He's  so 
sensitive.  .  .  . 

Etc.,  etc.  (recurring) . 

After  the  first  three  or  four  repetitions,  Sir  George 
liad  learnt  his  words  by  heart,  and  went  on  saying 
them  with  growing  conviction,  building  the  part  up, 
so  to  speak,  but  he  expressed  himself  to  me  as  "  a 
sadder  and  a  wiser  man,"  when  he  hung  up  the  re- 
ceiver at  the  close  of  the  final  performance. 

At  his  bidding  I  returned  to  my  office  and  sent 
about  sixty  telegrams  to  the  leading  papers  and  press 
agencies  of  the  United  Kingdom  making  good  the 
omission.  We  then  wrote  a  letter  to  Lady  Tree  tell- 
ing her  what  had  been  done,  since  she  wouldn't  allow 
Alexander  to  get  in  a  word  edgeways  over  the  'phone, 
and  expressed  the  heartfelt  regrets  of  everybody  con- 
cerned for  the  Shakespearean  calamity  that  had  over- 
taken the  various  members  of  her  family.  Then,  but 
not  till  then,  we  breathed  again,  and  carried  on  the 
more  necessary,  if  less  devitalizing,  work  we  had  in 
hand. 

But  the  incident  threatened  to  assume  international 
momentousness.  I  must  again  draw  attention  to  the 
fact  that  Europe  was  at  that  time  engaged  in  a  vast 


92      MODERN    MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

and  varying  conflict.  Perhaps  the  most  important 
personage  then  alive  was  the  Right  Honorable  H.  H. 
Asquith,  English  Prime  Minister,  and  he  lay  sick  in 
bed.  Undeterred  by  his  illness,  and  the  fact  that 
whatever  strength  he  possessed  would  doubtless  be 
required  to  deal  with  the  many  military  and  political 
problems  of  the  hour,  Lady  Tree  descended  upon 
Number  10  Downing  Street,  armed  with  that  fatal 
press  cutting.  We  do  not  know,  we  cannot  guess, 
what  took  place  at  the  meeting.  I  can  picture  it  to 
myself,  but  the  picture  is  far  too  rich  and  affecting 
to  be  put  into  words.  The  thought  of  it  will  solace 
me  in  my  dying  hours. 

Lady  Tree  wrote  a  letter  describing  the  Premier's 
solicitude  for  her  distress  and  his  anxiety  that  her 
husband  should  figure  in  all  bills,  programs,  press 
notices  and  other  public  announcements.  In  handing 
the  letter  to  me,  Alexander  said  with  an  ironical  grin : 
'  What  a  treat  it  is  to  meet  in  real  life  a  truly  de- 
voted couple  like  the  Trees !  " 

When  the  Tercentenary  Celebration  was  over  and 
done  with,  Alexander  asked  me  what  I  thought  of 
our  leading  actors  and  actresses.  I  said  that  they 
didn't  bear  thinking  about.  "  And  how,"  I  added, 
"  do  you  feel  about  it  all? "  He  sank  back  into  his 
chair,  and.,  with  something  between  a  sigh  and  a  groan, 

replied:  "  Never  again!  " 

***** 

In  conclusion  I  would  like  to  speak  an  actor's  word 
on  the  manager's  personality.  He  was  a  strangely 
reticent  man.  One  always  felt  that  conversation  with 
him  might  at  any  moment  come  suddenly  to  an  end, 
and  that  everything  depended  upon  one's  own  powers 


SIR   GEORGE   ALEXANDER  98 

of  keeping  it  up.  Possibly  this  did  not  apply  to  men 
of  his  own  age.  Probably  it  was  due  to  his  business- 
like habits.  He  was  perpetually  doing  something.  I 
could  never  imagine  him  reclining  in  an  arm-chair 
with  carpet-slippered  feet  resting  on  the  mantelpiece. 
His  cut-and-dried,  practical  methods  were  a  godsend 
to  a  nerve-racked  generation  of  actors  and  actresses 
who,  at  the  St.  James's,  could  always  depend  within 
a  very  few  minutes  on  the  hour  of  commencement 
and  the  hour  of  dismissal  at  rehearsals.  At  any  other 
theater  I  was  acquainted  with,  they  could  depend  on 
nothing  except  that  no  rehearsal  would  begin  or  end 
at  the  stipulated  hour.  Another  inestimable  point  ill 
his  favor  was  that  he  never  attempted  to  browbeat 
anyone  in  his  employ;  he  never  lost  his  temper  and 
was  never  sarcastic  at  another's  expense.  He  was  in- 
variably considerate,  the  essence  of  courtesy,  thought- 
fulness,  sympathy  and  tact — and  he  was  as  just  as 
he  was  thorough.  These  things  may  appear  insig- 
nificant to  an  outsider,  but  they  were  important  to 
the  members  of  a  profession  who,  in  the  hands  of 
many  of  his  managerial  contemporaries,  were  in  turn 
bullied,  cheated,  insulted,  worsted,  and  in  general 
chivied  about  from  pillar  to  post. 

I,  personally,  have  especial  cause  to  be  grateful  to 
Alexander.  He  helped  and  encouraged  me  at  a  time 
when  help  and  encouragement  were  priceless.  And 
mine  was  by  no  means  a  solitary  case.  Indeed,  I 
never  knew  a  man  who  was  so  appreciated  by  his 
fellow-workers.  He  judged  people  on  their  merits, 
and  in  giving  opportunities  to  others  he  served  no 
selfish  purpose.  His  judgment,  too,  was  rarely  at  the 
mercy  of  his  sentiment.  Essentially  one's  affection 


94      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

for  him  was  tempered  by  respect,  because  he  had  none 
of  the  weaknesses  usually  associated  with  his  pro- 
fessional brethren.  He  was  humane  without  being 
very  human,  likeable  without  being  very  lovable. 

And,  whatever  his  shortcomings  as  actor  and  play- 
monger,  let  this  be  his  epitaph:  He  was  a  man  first 
and  a  mummer  afterwards — thus  reversing  the  cus- 
tomary procedure  of  stage  celebrities. 


FRANK  HARRIS 

FRANK  HARRIS  is  the  most  dynamic  writer  alive.  He 
has  brought  the  impulse  of  life  into  letters.  He  has 
lived  his  own  writings.  Others  have  brought  ordi- 
nary, everyday  life  into  contact  with  letters — Kipling, 
for  instance,  and  the  journalists — but  to  Harris  be- 
longs the  honor  of  transferring  tense  spiritual  emo- 
tions to  the  written  page.  His  appeal  is  to  the  men 
and  women  who  have  lived,  not  drifted,  through  life ; 
or  to  those  who  have  the  instinct,  without  the  actual 
experience,  of  life's  primary  sensations.  That  is  why 
he  doesn't  appeal  to  our  so-called  literary  artists.  He 
has  no  conscious  style  of  expression.  The  style  is  the 
man.  He  does  not  deal  in  "  situations  "  and  "  third 
acts."  All  the  acts  in  his  dramas  are  equally  good. 
If  a  climax  occurs  at  all,  it  occurs  in  the  right,  the 
inevitable  place;  it  is  never  forced.  A  work  by  most 
writers  is  like  a  manure  heap,  with  a  solitary  rose- 
bush in  the  center.  A  work  by  Frank  Harris  is 
tropical.  You  don't  know  how  it  all  grows;  you  just 
realize  the  amazing  fact  that  it  has  grown  and  that  it 
is  all  very  much  alive  and  pricking. 

We  are  a  very  chaste  nation.  Our  literature  is 
chaste,  our  morality  is  chaste,  our  art  is  chaste.  We 
even  worship  a  chaste  God,  regarding  as  we  do  chas- 
tity as  a  virtue.  It  was  my  painful  duty  at  one  time 
to  read  all  the  books  on  Shakespeare  that  had  ever 

95 


96      MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

been  written  by  English  critics.  They  were  all  chaste 
books  by  chaste  writers  and  their  object  was  to  prove 
Shakespeare  a  model  of  chastity.  At  the  end  of  that 
appalling  experience  I  came  across  Frank  Harris's 
books  on  Shakespeare.  I  knew  at  once  that  they 
were  the  finest,  indeed  the  only  great,  works  of  crea- 
tive criticism  in  the  language.  As  to  whether  his 
"Man:  Shakespeare"  was  in  truth  the  very  person 
who  wrote  "  Hamlet,"  "  Henry  IV,"  etc.,  hardly  mat- 
tered a  scrap.  What  did  matter  was  that  Shake- 
speare, for  the  first  time,  had  been  humanized  for  us 
and  that  the  vital  personality  of  Harris  was  very 
clearly  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  Shakespeare's 
poetry. 

So  I  got  the  rest  of  his  books  and  was  astounded  to 
find  my  admiration  for  the  author  increasing  by  leaps 
and  bounds.  As  a  rule,  with  me,  it  is  the  other  way 
about.  I  shall  never  forget  my  delight  when  I  read 
:<  The  Bomb,"  a  novel  in  a  million,  and  "  Sonia,"  a 
short  story  without  a  peer — both  of  them  gospels  for 
the  great  and  caviare  to  the  coward.  Then  came 
"  Unpath'd  Waters,"  which  contains  more  real  genius, 
a  larger  humanity,  a  deeper  comprehension,  a  wider 
vision,  than  any  volume  of  short  stories  I  know.  And, 
lastly,  but  facile  princeps,  that  wonderful  series  of 
"  Contemporary  Portraits,"  a  new  art  in  our  lan- 
guage, with  its  master-portrait  of  Oscar  Wilde,  surely 

the  most  poignant  soul-study  we  possess. 

***** 

I  first  got  to  know  Frank  Harris  in  July,  1913. 
He  then  occupied  a  flat  at  67  Lexham  Gardens,  South 
Kensington.  I  heard  him  lecture  at  a  curious  under- 
ground club  called  the  Petit  Cabaret  in  Heddon 


FRANK   HARRIS  97 

Street,  and  afterwards  went  to  see  him  at  his  flat. 
First  impressions  of  unusual  men  are  apt  to  be  strik- 
ing, but  a  first  impression  of  Harris  is  more  likely  to 
be  startling.  The  vigor  and  violence  of  his  speech 
alone  took  my  breath  away.  He  had  the  most  reso- 
nant voice  I  have  ever  heard  in  my  life,  and  the  most 
uncompromising  method  of  expressing  himself.  Al- 
most, one  might  say,  electric  sparks  flew  out  of  him 
in  every  direction.  This  has  gained  him  all  his  ene- 
mies, because  the  majority  of  people  don't  like  being 
electrified.  It  has  also  gained  him  his  greatest  friends, 
because  some  people  like  the  human  dynamo.  He  is 
nothing  if  not  downright.  He  never  "  hedges  "  an 
issue.  He  wouldn't  dream  of  saying  about  anyone: 
"  So-and-so  is  questionably  honest."  He  would  say: 
"So-and-so  is  a  damned  scoundrel!"  I  was  stag- 
gered by  the  colossal  number  of  damned  scoundrels, 
blackguards,  miscreants  and  Judases  to  whom  I  was 
introduced,  by  name  only,  before  I  had  been  in  his 
company  half  an  hour.  I  must  admit  I  liked  it  (there 
isn't  half  enough  of  that  sort  of  thing  in  the  ordinary 
way ) ,  and  Harris  praises  just  as  wholeheartedly  as  he 
damns.  The  impression  I  got  of  him,  then,  was  of  a 
man  whose  every  pulse  and  nerve  was  quickened  to  an 
almost  delirious  intensity,  a  man  who  exuded  vitality 
as  a  politician  exudes  platitudes.  Physically,  he  was 
short  and  thickset,  not  in  any  sense  corpulent,  a  head 
thickly  covered  with  dark  hair,  mustache  to  match,  a 
bold  jaw  and  aggressive  nose.  We  talked  until  the 
early  hours  on  every  subject  under  the  sun,  and  I 
found  that  he  spoke  about  everything,  from  engineer- 
ing to  cooking,  with  the  same  keenness  and  relish,  the 
same  fire  and  curiosity. 


98       MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

A  month  later  I  saw  him  again.  Davidson,  the 
sculptor,  was  with  him,  and  Simpson,  the  artist,  too. 
The  former  had  just  completed  a  bust  of  Harris,  at 
least  he  put  the  final  touches  to  it  this  same  evening 
when  we  went  round  to  his  studio.  Harris,  while 
standing  as  Davidson  finished  it  off,  regaled  us  with 
humorous  incidents  of  his  early  life  in  America.  His 
leg  was  pulled  repeatedly  by  the  other  two,  but  he 
took  it  all  in  good  part  and  went  on  with  the  yarn. 
Eventually  the  bust  was  baptized  with  whisky— 
everyone  having  been  careful  to  baptize  his  own  inner 
man  previous  to  this — and  we  all  rolled  into  the  street. 
I  now  became  conscious  of  the  presence  of  several 
other  people,  but  where  they  came  from  or  who  they 
were  I  hadn't  the  foggiest  idea.  In  this  condition 
(I  seem  to  remember  that  Harris  was  the  only  one 
not,  strictly,  in  this  condition)  we  all  entered  a  pub, 
where  Harris  was  introduced  to  the  barman  as  Shake- 
speare, Davidson  as  Michael  Angelo,  and  Simpson  as 
Rembrandt.  They  didn't  quite  know  what  to  call  me, 
so  a  compromise  was  effected  between  the  names  of 
Shaw  and  Wells,  and  the  barman  would,  I  feel  sure, 
if  confronted  with  me  now,  swear  on  his  Bible-oath 
that  my  name  is  "  Mr.  Shells."  Everything  went  very 
agreeably  until  someone  decided  that  someone  else 
had  insulted  him.  Then  the  glass-breaking  phase 
commenced.  Now  I  have  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand the  extraordinary  pleasure  some  men  must  feel 
at  the  sound  of  breaking  glass.  At  any  rate  the  cus- 
tom is  so  frequently  regarded  as  the  jolliest  part  of  a 
jolly  evening  that  I  assume  Bacchus  himself  must 
have  lived  in  a  glass  house.  On  this  particular  occa- 
sion I  certainly  intended  to  see  the  business  through 


96 

with  as  complete  a  sense  of  detachment  as  possible. 
But  everything  conspired  to  upset  my  sang-froid. 
First,  the  seat  on  which  I  sat  was  shattered  by  a  blow 
from  an  iron  pole,  which  would  certainly  have  fin- 
ished my  career  if  it  had  hit  me  instead  of  the  chair. 
Next,  a  spittoon  (I  had  no  idea  it  was  such  a  con- 
siderable piece  of  furniture)  came  hurtling  through 
the  air,  missed  my  head  by  the  veriest  fraction  of  an 
inch,  wrecked  several  items  of  adornment  in  an  alcove 
behind  me  and  dropped  with  miraculous  precision  on 
the  toe  of  a  contemplative  gentleman  near  by.  The 
latter,  with  unlooked-for  ferocity,  seized  a  chair,  shot 
past  me  in  the  direction  from  whence  the  spittoon 
came,  and  felled  a  perfectly  innocent  man  to  the 
ground  with  a  sickening  crash.  Finally,  the  police 
arrived — and  I  have  not  seen  Frank  Harris  since. 

Later  in  the  same  year  I  heard  that  he  had  taken 
over  the  editorship  of  a  paper  called  "  Modern  So- 
ciety," and  later  still,  I  read  that  he  had  been  impris- 
oned for  libel  or  contempt  of  Court  or  some  such 
thing.  I  tried  to  get  permission  to  see  him,  but  failed. 
Afterwards  came  the  war,  but  I  will  show  his  attitude 
towards  that  more  clearly,  as  it  appears  in  some  of 
his  letters  to  me,  when  I  have  given  the  keynote  to 
this  character. 

Bernard  Shaw,  in  a  letter  to  Harris,  expressed  him- 
self on  the  apparently  irreconcilable  qualities  of  Har- 
ris's nature  as  follows : 

'  There  is  an  old  story  told  sometimes  about 
Mazarin,  sometimes  about  Richelieu,  of  a  Minister's 
antechamber  hung  with  pictures;  those  on  one  side 
being  all  idyllic  landscapes  and  scenes  of  domestic 
sentiment;  those  on  the  other  scenes  of  battle  and 


100     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

blood  and  torture.  The  Minister,  when  he  wanted  to 
size  up  a  new  man,  watched  how  he  took  the  pictures. 
If  he  clung  to  the  battle  pictures,  the  Minister  knew 
that  he  was  a  timid  man  of  peace,  for  whom  action 
and  daring  were  full  of  romantic  fascination.  If  he 
wallowed  in  cottage  sentiment  and  the  Maiden's 
Prayer,  he  was  immediately  marked  down  for  mili- 
tary preferment  and  dangerous  jobs. 

"  Have  you  ever  known  a  sportsman  who  was 
ferocious  ?  Have  you  ever  known  a  humanitarian  who 
was  not  ferocious?  You  are  yourself  so  in  love  with 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  with  all  aspects  of 
gentleness  and  pity,  that  people  who  have  never  met 
you  possibly  imagine  you  as  a  Christ-like,  dove-eyed 
figure.  But  has  anybody  who  has  met  you  personally 
ever  described  you  as  '  Gentle  Francis,  meek  and 
mild ! '  The  apparent  contradiction  of  your  pity  for 
Sonia  and  Oscar  Wilde  by  your  buccaneering  man- 
ners and  occasionally  frightful  language  is  a  familiar 
natural  phenomenon." 

Later,  when  Harris  wrote  to  ask  why  Shaw  had 
described  him  as  a  "ruffian,"  Shaw  replied: 

'  You  must  not  take  my  comments  on  your  per- 
sonal characteristics  as  sneers  and  disparagements. 
If  you  do  you  will  find  me  an  impossible  man  to 
have  any  relations  with.  I  tell  you  you  are  a  ruffian 
exactly  as  an  oculist  might  tell  you  that  you  are 
astigmatic.  I  will  tell  you  now  more  precisely  what 
I  mean — if  I  have  done  so  already  you  have  brought 
the  repetition  on  yourself. 

"  Somebody  in  London  society  who  likes  inter- 
esting people  meets  you  and  invites  you  to  dinner. 
He  asks  you  to  take  in  a  bishop's  wife.  You  enter- 


FRANK   HARRIS  101 

tain  her  with  deep-voiced  outpourings  of  your  scorn 
for  the  hypocrisy  and  snobbery  of  the  Church,  finish- 
ing up  with  a  touch  of  poetry  about  Mary  Magda- 
lene and  her  relations  with  Jesus.  When  the  poor 
lady  escapes  to  the  drawing-room  and  you  find  your- 
self between  the  bishop  and  Edmund  Gosse,  you  turn 
the  conversation  on  to  the  genius  of  Hops,  and  prob- 
ably produce  a  specimen  of  his  work,  broadening 
your  language  at  the  same  time  into  that  of  the  fore- 
castle of  a  pirate  sloop. 

"  And  if  you  observe  the  least  sign  of  restiveness 
or  discomfort  on  the  part  of  the  twain,  you  re-double 
your  energy  of  expression  and  barb  it  with  open  and 
angry  scorn.  When  they  escape  upstairs  in  their 
turn,  they  condole  with  one  another.  Gosse  says, 
*  My  God,  what  a  man ! '  The  bishop  says,  '  Oh,  im- 
possible ;  quite  impossible ! ' 

"  Now  though  this  particular  picture  is  a  fancy 
one,  it  is  not  founded  on  any  lies  that  people  have 
told  me.  I  have  seen  and  heard  you  do  such  things ; 
I  have  been  condoled  with,  and  have  had  to  admit 
that  you  are  a  monster,  and  that  clever  as  you  are, 
it  is  impossible  to  ask  anyone  to  meet  you  unless  they 
are  prepared  to  stand  anything  that  the  uttermost 
freemasonry  of  the  very  freest  thought  and  expres- 
sion in  the  boldest  circles  can  venture  on.  Poor  old 
Adolphe  Adam  used  to  run  away  from  Beethoven's 
symphonies  crying  '  J'aime  la  musique  qui  me  berce ! ' 
You  would  have  run  after  him  with  a  trombone 
blaring  Beethoven's  most  challenging  themes  into 
his  ears. 

"  Now  intensely  disagreeable  as  this  was  to  our 
Adams  and  snobs  and  conventional  people  in  gen- 


eral,  it  was  not  at  all  disagreeable  to  me.  It  was 
quite  genuine  and  natural,  like  Beethoven  walking 
truculently  through  the  court  group  with  his  hat 
thrust  down  on  his  eyebrows  when  Goethe  stood  aside 
politely  hat  in  hand  like  a  good  Geheimrath.  When 
Beethoven's  brother  put  '  Landbesitzer '  (Landed 
Proprietor)  on  his  visiting  card,  Beethoven  put 
'  Hirnbesitzer  '  (Brain  Owner)  on  his.  All  that  was 
ruffianism  on  Beethoven's  part;  but  it  was  an  asser- 
tion of  real  values;  and  the  man  who  asserts  real 
values  cannot  be  passed  over  by  nobodies,  or  disliked 
by  somebodies,  merely  because  he  asserts  them  in  a 
ruffianly  way.  And  your  ruffianism  was  on  the  whole 
of  this  description.  If  it  had  been  aristocratic  in- 
solence and  impatience  of  self-restraint  like  that  of 

C or  D ,  it  would  have  been  intolerable.    As 

it  was,  I  liked  it. 

"  BUT — and  here  is  the  point  of  insisting  on  it 
as  I  do — it  damaged  you  socially.  It  must  have 
agonized  Wilde,  not  merely  because  he  was  a  snob 
and  could  hear  Shakespeare  saying,  '  Harris  with 
his  teeth  ever  in  the  plump  calf  of  prosperity,'  but 
because  he  shrank  from  seeing  nice  and  innocent  peo- 
ple wounded  and  scorned  merely  because  they  were 
not  geniuses.  But  Wilde  did  not  greatly  matter 
socially;  what  did  matter  was  that  though  one  could 
ask  you  to  meet  Julia  Frankau  and  Lady  Jessica 
Sykes,  one  could  not  ask  you  to  meet  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward.  You  may  say  '  God  be  praised  for  that!  I 
never  wanted  to  meet  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.'  All 
the  same,  you  cannot  have  a  career  in  London  as  a 
journalist  and  politician  unless  you  can  be  trusted 
to  take  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  in  to  dinner  and  leave 


FRANK   HARRIS  103 

her  under  the  impression  that  you  are  either  a  very  re- 
spectable or  a  very  charming  man. 

"  You  may  say  that  this  may  be  true,  but  why  rub 
it  into  you  now  that  you  are  out  of  London?  Well, 
you  are  out  of  London;  but  you  have  left  a  reputa- 
tion there,  part  of  which  consists  of  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  in  some  way  or  other  you  made  yourself 
impossible  and  had  to  go  off  to  Monte  Carlo  and 
then  to  America,  where  you  publicly  shook  the  dust 
of  London  from  your  feet.  People  whose  curiosity 
is  roused  by  your  writings  ask,  '  What  was  wrong 
with  Frank  Harris  ?  Wasn't  he  a  Jew,  or  a  financial 
blackmailer- journalist,  or  another  Verlaine,  or  a 
German  spy,  or  something? '  It  is  necessary  to 
reply,  *  No :  he  was  simply  the  most  impossible  ruf- 
fian on  the  face  of  the  earth,'  and  explain  in  the  sense 
in  which  I  have  explained  above.  .  .  . 

"  As  to  myself,  of  course  I  am  a  ruffian.  Set  a 
ruffian  to  catch  a  ruffian.  But  I  am  only  ruffianly 
nor-nor-west.  Though  it  be  ruffianism,  yet  there's 
method  in't.  .  .  ." 

Now  all  this,  coupled  with  the  remarks  Shaw  had 
already  made  about  Harris's  work  in  his  preface  to 
"The  Dark  Lady  of  the  Sonnets,"  gives  a  very  true 
idea  of  the  man  from  one  point  of  view.  But  it  can- 
not be  regarded  as  complete  in  another  sense.  What 
Shaw  does  not,  apparently,  see  is  that  the  Harris  of 
"  Sonia,"  "  The  Magic  Glasses,"  and  "  The  Miracle 
of  the  Stigmata  "  is  just  as  much  the  Harris  of  real 
life  as  is  the  violent  denouncer  of  wars,  snobs  and 
capitalists.  The  man  who  no  doubt  did  terrify  Wilde 
on  occasion  is  the  same  man  whose  heart-felt  winning 
sympathy  drew  from  him  those  deeply  intimate  con- 


104     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

fessions  which  Harris  has  since  given  to  the  world. 
Only  a  man  who  can  love  greatly  can  feel  intensely 
enough  to  lash  out  with  a  will.  A  naturally  sympa- 
thetic man  is  invariably  a  good  hater.  The  two 
things  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  thing,  as 
Shaw  has  shown;  but  they  exist  together,  in  the  man 
and  his  work,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  which  Shaw 
does  not  seem  to  realize.  The  too  sensitive  spirit 
masks  itself  before  the  world.  Harris  is  super- 
sensitive,  and  his  mask  is  all  the  more  frightening. 
He  has  pawned  his  own  things  a  hundred  times  in 
order  to  help  friends  in  distress  (no  doubt  accom- 
panying the  deeds  with  loud  and  savory  oaths)  and 
he  is  one  of  those  strange,  occasionally  awkward, 
people  who  are  quite  incapable  of  attaching  the 
smallest  consequence  to  money,  except  for  the  im- 
mediate use  it  has  in  helping  others  or  spending 
royally.  He  is  indeed  a  monster  according  to  all  con- 
ventional standards,  but  his  monstrosity  only  offends 
the  shallow  people  who  can't  see  beyond  it — to  the 
soul  of  greatness  underneath  it — and  they  are  the 
people  who  simply  aren't  worth  propitiating.  "  Har- 
ris," said  Shaw  on  another  occasion,  "  was  born  an 
outlaw,  and  will  never  be  anything  else."  That  is 
strictly  true.  All  the  higher  wisdom  we  poor  mortals 
enjoy  comes  from  the  few  choice  spirits  who  stand 
outside  and  above  the  common  law. 


A  man  reveals  himself  best  in  his  private  corre- 
spondence. Here  only  does  he  "  let  himself  go." 
Here  only  do  his  inner  thoughts  come  to  light,  marked 
by  his  every  characteristic.  It  was  my  joy  to  be 


FRANK   HARRIS  105 

Harris's  most  constant  English  correspondent  be- 
tween the  years  1914  and  1919,  when  even  his  chief 
admirers  and  friends  had  turned  their  backs  on  him. 
This  was  not  because  I  agreed  with  his  attitude  to- 
wards the  war.  Indeed  I  frequently  wrote  and  criti- 
cized the  views  he  was  expressing.  I  suppose  it  was 
because  I  happen  to  have  been  born  with  a  faculty 
for  friendship  which  transcends  all  my  other  feelings. 
At  any  rate,  I  want  him  now  to  picture  himself  to 
my  readers  as  I  saw  him  all  through  those  disastrous 
times.  He  has  been  neglected  quite  long  enough. 
Sooner  or  later  we  must  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  an 
appreciation  of  genius  is  a  higher  form  of  patriotism 
than  a  depreciation  of  Germans  (or  whatever  other 
race  we  happen  to  be  fighting) .  Our  Shakespeares, 
not  our  soldiers,  redeem  us  in  the  sight  of  the  world. 
And  we  mustn't  always  be  content  to  leave  our  big- 
gest people  to  the  justice  and  honor  of  posterity. 
"  Future  Renown  "  is  certainly  a  pleasant  prospect, 
but  it  isn't  enough.  It  is  not,  I  think,  unreasonable 
to  ask  that  our  men  of  genius  should  be  rewarded 
by  (shall  we  say?)  half  the  comfort  and  security  en- 
joyed by  the  secretary  of  a  Football  League. 


September  30,  1915* 

I  don't  know  how  to  thank  you  enough  for  your 
brave,  kind,  sympathetic  letter:  it  has  done  me  good, 
quickening  and  encouraging  me  in  this  mad  world. 
.  .  .  From  the  enclosed  article,  you  will  see  that  I 
am  preaching  a  generous  peace  even  to  Germans. 
.  .  .  The  baser  sort  of  English  journalists  say  I 
have  been  bought  by  the  Germans  (to  praise  the 


106     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

French  in  and  out  of  season?).  If  only  someone 
would  pay  me  for  preaching  what  I  believe,  I  should 
rejoice.  No  such  luck,  I'm  afraid.  And  the  English 
at  any  rate  ought  to  know  that  I  can't  be  bought  to 
praise  or  even  tolerate  what  I  dislike — or  did  the 
Boers  pay  me  too,  that  I  ruined  myself  defending 
them? 

November  4,  1915. 

Your  charming,  kindly  letter  touched  me  deeply: 
the  bolder  front  we  turn  to  the  world,  the  sorer  is 
the  heart.  All  my  life  I  have  been  an  exile;  but  as 
age  comes  on  transplanting's  like  amputation,  one's 
apt  to  bleed  to  death.  Shakespeare  says :  "  'Tis 
honor  with  most  lands  to  be  at  odds."  I  have  always 
felt  at  odds  with  every  land,  and  now,  were  I  given 
to  self-pity,  I  could  arrange  a  moving  tale:  friends 
and  money  lost;  health  shaken;  universal  contempt; 
unpopular  opinions;  exiled  and  old — 

Better  men  fared  thus  before  you, 
Fired  their  ringing  shot  and  passed 
Hotly  charged  though  broke  at  last. 

But  even  that  is  not  my  humor  completely.  Life's 
a  noble,  gorgeous  gift;  I  accept  good  and  ill  with 
gratitude;  luck's  a  blessing  and  ill-luck's  a  greater 
blessing  still  if  we  will  but  find  the  soul  of  goodness 
in  it.  Yet  for  the  moment  I'm  sad  and  depressed, 
and  another  verse,  a  bitter  one,  rings  in  my  memory : 

Aye,  look :  high  heaven  and  earth  ail  from  the  prime  founda- 
tion; 
All  thoughts  to  rive  the  heart  are  here,  and  all  are  vain: 


FRANK   HARRIS  107 

Horror  and  scorn  and  hate  and  fear  and  indignation — 
Oh,  why  dad  I  wake?    When  shall  I  sleep  again? 

And  this: 

Be  still,  be  still,  my  soul ;  it  is  but  for  a  season : 
Let  us  endure  an  hour  and  see  injustice  done. 

But  the  bad  moment  passes  and  my  courage  holds 
and  the  resolve  to  grow  as  long  as  I  can  and  see 
as  much  as  may  be  of  this  God's  world.  And  so  I 
send  you  greeting  and  thanks.  They  say  I'm  bought 
with  German  gold  and  living  in  a  great  apartment 
in  the  dearest  hotel  in  New  York.  I  stayed  in  the 
dear  St.  Regis  three  days  in  all,  while  I  was  search- 
ing a  lodging,  and  at  this  moment  I  am  at  work  as 
advertising  agent  for  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Rail- 
way, as  my  political  opinions  are  generally  detested 
in  New  York,  and,  indeed,  throughout  these  United 
States.  I  cannot  get  work  on  any  paper  save  by 
chance.  On  November  20th,  Collier's  Weekly  will 
publish  an  article  from  me  entitled  "  England's 
Hope,"  which  will  prove,  among  other  things,  that 
German  efficiency  is  at  its  worst  in  the  Army  and 
Navy,  because  there  it  is  enfeebled  by  German 
snobbery  and  Germany's  hereditary  aristocracy  and 
hereditary  Kaiser!  But  the  British  press  will  find 
in  this  paper  another  proof  of  "  traitorism,"  by  which 
the  editors  mean  apparently  unswerving  loyalty  to 
truth.  I  can  only  love  any  country  in  so  far  as  it 
stands  for  truth  and  beauty  and  humanity,  and  I 
come  perilously  near  hating  these  savage  Germanic 
peoples  with  their  big  bellies  and  combative  instincts. 
I  prefer  the  Celts,  who  cherish  a  humane  ideal  and 


can  be  moved  by  abstract  and  ideal  causes.  .  .  .  I'm 
trying  to  build  up  another  home — all  to  begin  over 
again ;  but  a  brave  heart  finds  the  toil  a  new  and  en- 
chanting adventure.  .  .  .  I've  learned  life's  chief 
lessons  very  thoroughly  and  it  doesn't  frighten  me. 
But  that  the  British  should  yell  hate  and  fury  at  me 
because  I  sell  myself  makes  me  smile,  even  were  the 
accusation  true,  for  they  are  accustomed  to  expect  it 
in  their  favorites.  Why  did  Winston  Churchill  cross 
the  floor  of  the  House,  take  office  under  the  Liberals 
and  attack  the  Unionists?  Why  did  Thingumbob 
shuffle  off  his  belief  in  Free  Trade  and  take  up  the 
cudgels  for  Protection?  Simply  for  a  peerage.  And 
these  men  had  comparatively  no  temptation.  They 
had  not  been  ruined  by  illegality,  broken  in  health 
by  an  unjust  imprisonment,  exiled  in  poverty  and 
age.  .  .  . 

February  3,  1916. 

It  seems  ages  since  I  heard  from  you,  though  I 
hear  of  you  now  and  again.  I'm  almost  afraid  that 
my  war-book,  "  England  or  Germany?  "  must  have 
hurt  or  disappointed  you.  Yet  I  say  to  myself  that 
no  opinion  of  yours  would  change  my  estimate  of 
your  character  and  disposition.  Tired  of  consoling 
myself  with  reasonings,  I  write  frankly  to  you:  I 
hope  I've  said  or  done  nothing  to  alienate  you,  and 
I  am  conscious  of  being  as  affectionately  minded 
towards  you  as  ever.  This  square  (Washington 
Square)  is  as  large  as  Trafalgar  Square.  Fifth 
Avenue  runs  into  the  middle  of  it  and  at  the  junc- 
ture there's  a  meaningless  arch,  which,  however  use- 
less and  in  itself  foolish,  has  in  winter,  when  fes- 


FRANK   HARRIS  109 

tooned  with  snow  or  gleaming  with  icicles,  a  certain 
esthetic  value.  To-night  I  saw  it  in  hard  frost,  the 
sky  purple  with  rain  of  diamonds,  and  above  the 
arch  a  cross  in  golden  fire  on  the  spire  of  some 
Catholic  Church.  This  New  York  is  hard  and  shal- 
low and  greedy  as  an  old  whore:  the  most  terrible 
city  in  the  world  for  the  weakling  or  artist  or  scien- 
tist, or,  indeed,  any  man  of  genius  or  distinction. 
This  people  loves  education  and  endows  it  with  an 
incomparable  munificence,  but  it  cares  nothing  for 
the  flower  and  fruit  and  object  of  education — men 
and  women  of  talent.  Americans  are  appallingly 
purblind  and  self-satisfied.  There!  I've  fired  off  my 
Jeremiad,  and  can  now  tell  you  I'm  fairly  content 
as  advertising  manager  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio 
Railway  Company  and  of  the  Union  Pacific.  I  can 
run  across  the  Continent  from  side  to  side  and  study 
the  people  east  and  west  and  find  a  little  time  besides 
for  writing.  .  .  .  This  war  is  evidently  going  on  for 
at  least  another  year — a  long  struggle  between  Rome 
and  Carthage  again,  land  power  against  sea  power, 
a  game  all  will  lose  at.  ...  To-morrow  I'm  off  to 
Virginia.  Do  tell  me  about  London  in  your  next: 
is  there  any  suffering  or  are  the  poor  better  off  than 
before? 

April  5,  1916. 

Your  letter  did  me  a  lot  of  good :  it  chimed  in  with 
my  thought.  I've  not  been  able  to  explain  lately 
why  new  stories  come  to  me  so  rarely  now,  whereas 
portraits  of  men  I've  known  are  always  suggesting 
themselves.  I've  always  thought  the  stories  higher, 
more  creative  in  character.  Now  you  tell  me  that 


110     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

though  my  stories  are  of  the  best,  still  my  critical 
portraits  and  biographies  are  better.  I'm  glad, 
though  by  no  means  so  sure  of  their  superiority  as 
you  are,  for  it's  easier  to  write  a  "  Portrait  "  like  that 
of  Burton  or  Renan  than  a  story  like  "  The  English 
Saint,"  or  "  The  Miracle  of  the  Stigmata."  But  in 
one  point  I'm  pretty  sure  you  are  mistaken.  I  re- 
gard it  as  a  duty  to  draw  the  portraits  of  my  con- 
temporaries. I  always  felt  that  St.  Paul  and  Ben 
Jonson  missed  the  chance  of  their  lives  writing  their 
own  life-story  and  plays,  instead  of  the  history  of 
the  greater  men  whom  they  had  met.  But  it's  surely 
different  when  you  pass  from  contemporaries  to 
those  you've  never  met.  What  can  I  say  about 
Balzac  or  Cervantes,  Charles  V,  Napoleon  or  Co- 
lumbus— to  take  only  those  in  whom  I've  been  espe- 
cially interested — that  a  more  careful  and  younger 
student  might  not  be  able  to  surpass?  But  no  one 
will  ever  write  of  Carlyle  or  Renan  or  Davidson  or 
Maupassant  or  Verlaine  or  France,  in  the  future, 
without  bottoming  himself  on  my  work.  Every  new 
"  Portrait "  I  do  of  the  Shining  Ones  I  have  known 
is  sure  to  increase  my  readers  in  all  the  time  to  come ; 
and  it  would  surely  be  better  for  me  to  spend  all  the 
time  I  can  on  my  own  history  rather  than  on  the  his- 
tory of  Balzac  or  Napoleon.  The  one  I  must  know 
better  than  anyone  else  can  ever  know  it.  Tell  me: 
don't  you,  on  second  thoughts,  agree  with  me?  But 
alas!  here  no  one  seems  to  want  my  work  especially. 
I've  hawked  about  my  Portraits  and  no  one  will  take 
'em.  But  then  these  brainless  Americans,  filled  with 
vain  hatred  of  what  they  call  my  pro-German  atti- 
tude, will  not  take  my  stories  either:  they  prefer  the 


FRANK   HARRIS  111 

trash  and  drivel  of  little  love  stories  intended  to  ex- 
cite the  amorous  propensities  of  boys  and  girls.  .  .  . 
Bit  by  bit  I'm  getting  poorer,  though  I'm  once  more 
after  a  fortune.  Well,  it's  on  the  knees  of  the  gods 
and  I  don't  whimper,  for  their  judgment  must  be 
a  vindication  in  time.  .  .  .  Meanwhile,  Ave  atque 
Vale.  Sometimes  I  think  my  foot  is  in  the  stirrup. 

April  25,  1916. 

I'm  about  to  work  desperately,  for  I've  given  up 
being  advertising  agent.  Though  the  pay  was  good, 
it  brought  me  no  nearer  the  mark  of  my  high  calling, 
so  I  had  to  chuck  it.  Now  I've  got  a  small  interest 
in  some  Unpuncturable  Pneumatic  Tires.  If  it 
comes  off,  I'll  make  a  "  pile."  If  it  doesn't,  I  must 
just  hugger-mugger  along,  keeping  eyes  and  ears 
and  heart  open  for  another  chance,  meanwhile  work- 
ing as  hard  as  I  can.  It's  the  devil  to  begin  again  at 
60  when  you're  practically  unknown  and  altogether 
unappreciated ;  but  whom  the  gods  love,  they  chasten, 
and  I  don't  complain.  Every  such  experience  en- 
riches one  with  new  knowledge,  and  I'm  being  taught 
in  order  to  teach  the  more  efficaciously.  .  .  . 


July  1,  1916. 

I've  got  a  magazine  at  last.  I  am  going  to  fight 
for  Peace  and  Goodwill  to  Men  and  for  fair-play 
to  all  and  truth.  I  need  not  tell  you,  I  hope,  that 
I  love  France  more  than  Germany,  and  have  always 
talked  in  that  way.  The  Germans  here  would  not 
even  publish  my  war-book  or  help  me  to  find  a  pub- 
lisher. 


112     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

August  14,  1916. 

You  may  find  me  pro-Irish  and  pro-French,  but 
I'm  not  conscious  of  being  anti  anything.  However, 
in  war-time  reason  is  at  a  discount  and  my  time  will 
probably  come  when  men  recover  their  partial  sanity ; 
but  even  then  they'll  hate  me  for  having  kept  aloof. 
...  I  hate  your  being  a  soldier  in  these  woeful 
days. 

September  19, 1916. 

I  hope  time  may  be  given  me  to  do  all  my  work. 
I  have  a  sort  of  belief  that  no  one  dies  in  this  world 
till  their  soul  dies,  and  I  am  afraid  my  time  may  be 
near  at  hand  because  I  do  not  seem  to  have  grown 
in  America.  There  is  a  sort  of  arrest  in  my  develop- 
ment through  this  transplantation.  It  is  a  harsh  un- 
friendly climate  for  the  soul — this  one  of  New  York 
— and  I  have  no  roots  here.  I  put  out  little  tendrils 
now  and  then,  but  they  all  get  nipped.  ...  I  want 
the  war  to  end.  I  want  to  get  back  to  my  frank, 
friendly  French  people  again.  .  .  .  Don't  be  afraid 
of  excessive  hero-worship;  after  assimilating  all  of 
another's  spirit  that  we  need,  our  own  ego  quickly 
reacts  and  recovers  its  own  poise  and  balance.  As 
a  boy,  I  was  hypnotized  by  one  man  ten  years  my 
elder,  and  for  two  years  did  not  regain  my  center  of 
gravity.  Then  I  became  myself  again  and  never  lost 
my  own  soul  afterwards.  ...  I  have  found  it  hard 
to  live  even  in  America.  I  don't  mean  hard  to  earn 
my  living;  I  mean  that  the  soul  suffers,  the  mind 
withers,  the  sympathies  are  all  frost-bitten  in  this 
selfish,  individualist,  pushing,  vulgar  crowd.  Your 
warm  flattering  letters  have  helped  me  to  face  this 


FRANK   HARRIS  113 

all-hating,  all-envying,  all-deriding  world.  ...  I 
want  to  begin  my  second  volume  of  "  Contemporary 
Portraits  "  with  Bernard  Shaw,  whom,  like  yourself, 
I  regard  as  the  only  first-rate  figure  in  the  England 
of  to-day.  I  consider  Shaw's  an  almost  ideal  life. 
At  any  rate  I  do  not  know  fault  enough  in  him  to 
make  his  portrait  really  fine,  for,  as  I  have  said,  the 
shadows  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  high  lights.  I 
know  nothing  whatever  against  his  private  life,  and 
his  public  services,  both  of  courage  and  brains,  are 
of  the  first  order.  I  only  know  one  person  I  shall 
find  as  difficult  to  draw,  and  that  is  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace,  who  was  the  sweetest  and  noblest  person  I 
have  ever  met.  .  .  . 

December  12,  1916. 

My  autobiography  will,  of  course,  include  intimate 
portraits  of  my  contemporaries,  much  more  intimate 
than  I  could  put  in  print  for  general  use.  I  shall 
not  write  it  at  all  unless  I  am  able  to  write  it  with 
absolute  freedom  and  fidelity  to  fact.  The  reason  I 
told  you  of  Gautier's  portraits  was  that  he  has  writ- 
ten one  on  Balzac  that  puts  the  rest  completely 
in  the  shade.  I  do  not  know  how  to  criticize  it. 
If  I  had  read  it  before  I  had  done  my  own  por- 
traits, I  should  have  given  him  the  credit  for  being 
first  in  the  new  field,  all  on  the  strength  of  this  one 
on  Balzac,  which,  however,  has  two  weak  points  in 
it.  It  does  not  attempt  to  classify  Balzac,  to  put  him 
in  his  place  among  great  men;  nor  does  it  give  us 
that  intimate  knowledge  of  his  relations  with  women 
which  we  ought  to  have.  Gautier  tells  us  that  he  is 
going  to  do  it  and  then  does  not  do  it — a  fatal  gap. 


114    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

He  does  not  even  tell  us  how  Balzac  regarded  women; 
he  just  fails  to  tell  us  what  we  most  want  to  know. 
...  I  always  put  Balzac  with  Goethe  and  Shakes- 
peare, in  spite  of  his  lack  of  certain  artist  qualities 
which  I  must  love.  But  when  you  say  that  he  inter- 
ests you  far  more  than  Christ,  I  cannot  go  with  you. 
No  one  to  me  is  as  great  as  Jesus ;  no  one  has  reached 
his  sweetness  and  height.  .  .  .  To  say  nothing  of  the 
Jesus  story  and  Paul's  Epistles,  I  would  rather  have 
written  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Solomon  than 
anything  else  I  know.  I  wish  I  could  show  you 
pieces  in  them,  but  read  them  and  the  jewels  will 
stand  out  impossible  to  be  overlooked.  Fancy  a  per- 
son writing  of  love: 

I  sleep  but  my  heart  waketh ; 

It  is  the  voice  of  the  beloved  that  knocketh, 

I  never  give  an  opinion  on  books  that  I  have  not 
been  able  to  read  two  or  three  times.  Memory,  after 
all,  is  the  prototype  of  the  good  critic;  simply  lets 
the  poor  book  drop  through  its  meshes  into  oblivion 
and  rescues  the  best  scenes  or  characters  of  the  best 
books. 

You  tell  me  I  am  able  to  put  more  creative  power 
into  real  circumstances  and  real  people  than  into 
imaginary  characters.  If  you  are  right,  it  probably 
comes  from  the  fact  that  I  began  to  write  late  in 
life.  My  earliest  short  story  dates  from  about  '90 
and  was  not  written  much  before  I  was  five  and 
thirty.  As  one  gets  older,  one's  love  of  fiction 
diminishes  and  one  becomes  entranced  by  the  magical 
possibilities  of  reality.  One  of  the  chief  merits  in 


FRANK   HARRIS  115 

me,  I  think,  is  that  I  love  life  more  passionately  eveiy 
year  I  live  and  enjoy  it  more  intensely.  .  .  .  We 
picture  character  through  words.  I  should  have  liked 
to  have  pictured  one  character  through  deeds  alone, 
but  actions  are  a  recalcitrant  medium  and  such  a 
story  would  be  like  hammered  bronze. 

January  23,  1917. 

You  ask  me  whether  Wilde  told  me  the  story  of 
the  boy  in  the  ball.  ("Unpath'd  Waters.")  Yes, 
the  first  idea  of  the  story  came  from  Wilde  but  the 
ending  of  it,  that  the  boy  was  not  in  the  ball,  was 
my  idea.  Wilde  told  it  me  one  night  very  casually, 
saying  he  had  a  story.  I  said  of  course  the  boy  must 
not  be  in  the  ball  at  the  end,  so  that  the  man  could 
have  worsted  his  critics  if  he  only  had  had  the  self- 
confidence  of  virtue,  but  his  cheating  had  weakened 
him  and  so  he  came  to  grief.  The  moment  I  said  it, 
Oscar  jumped  at  the  idea  and  said:  "Oh!  Frank, 
what  a  splendid  ending;  but  that  makes  the  story 
yours;  I  have  no  more  interest  in  it;  you  must  write 
it."  He  never  wrote  it,  I  believe,  but  I  heard  him 
telling  it  once  afterwards  with  my  addition,  saying 
at  the  end  laughing:  "  This  is  our  story,  Frank."  So 
I  told  it,  adding  all  the  modern  scientific  stuff  to  give 
it  probability  as  I  thought,  or  to  put  round  it  a  sort 
of  haze  of  the  actual.  ...  If  it  had  not  been  for 
English  puritanism  and  American  puritanism,  I 
should  have  written  better  short  stories  than  any  I 
have  done.  My  best  love  story  is  in  "  The  Bomb," 
and  even  there  the  publisher,  helped  by  the  printer, 
refused  to  publish  it  unless  I  rewrote  the  love  meet- 
ings and  draped  the  figures;  they  simply  forced  me 


116    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

to  re-do  it,  and  I  assure  you  it  worsened  it.  Just 
because  my  hero  was  going  to  show  absolute  self- 
abnegation,  I  thought  myself  justified  in  painting  the 
physical  attraction  nakedly.  Then  I  had  to  cut  out 
all  the  bodily  urge  and  delightful  intoxication.  Of 
course,  I  never  saw  any  of  the  people  in  "  The 
Bomb,"  though  Shaw  said  he  had  met  Mrs.  Parsons 
when  she  came  to  London.  Lingg  I  took  from  the 
portrait  given  of  him  in  some  newspapers,  and  I 
idealized  him  into  the  spirit  of  revolution,  giving  him 
certainly  a  bigger  mind  than  he  had  and  basing  his 
revolt  on  truth  as  on  a  rock.  Schnaubelt  I  took  as 
the  type  of  a  first-class  cultured  mediocrity.  Lingg 
is  the  natural  instrument  and  helper,  and  I  thought 
it  significant  that  the  lieutenant  should  kill  others 
and  that  the  master  revolutionary  should  kill  himself. 
The  love  story  in  the  book  is  purely  imaginary, 
though  of  course  heated  by  my  own  experience,  col- 
ored by  my  own  passion.  I  had  drawn  an  American 
woman  in  "  A  Modern  Idyll " —  a  coquette,  who 
uses  the  cooler  nature  of  woman  to  excite  and  mad- 
den the  man.  This  time  in  Elsie  I  wanted  to  give  a 
picture  of  all  but  the  best  type  of  woman — a  creature 
splendidly  endowed  physically.  Your  praise  makes 
me  think  of  Meredith  when  he  says  in  one  of  his  let- 
ters that  too  much  praise  is  not  good  for  us ;  we  want 
just  enough  to  incite  us  to  do  our  best — enough,  if 
you  will,  to  do  better  than  our  best,  but  never  enough 
to  make  us  persuade  ourselves  that  in  us  humanity 
has  reached  its  zenith.  I  do  not  know  how  to  thank 
you  for  all  your  kindness  to  me.  It  has  been  hard  to 
live  here;  so  little  affection  in  the  place,  so  little  kind- 
ness. It  is  like  working  in  a  devilish  machine  shop 


FRANK    HARRIS  117 

among  strangers.    I  have  never  felt  myself  so  out- 
cast before.    Your  letters  have  helped  me  to  live. 

January  31,  1917. 

You  reproach  me  for  not  thinking  more  of  Bernard 
Shaw,  and  you  advise  me  to  read  him  all  over  again 
and  try  to  do  justice  to  his  genius.  None  of  us  can 
see  all  things  fairly,  much  less  all  men,  and  our  con- 
temporaries usually  come  to  us  like  the  goddesses  in 
Virgil,  clothed  with  a  mist,  and  alas!  their  movement 
strikes  us  as  anything  but  divine :  Incessu  non  patuit 
Deus.  Of  course  I  try  to  do  all  my  contemporaries 
justice,  especially  Shaw,  who  is  not  only  the  greatest 
of  them,  but  the  only  one  who  recognizes  the  chief 
obligation  of  greatness  by  trying  to  do  justice  to  his 
peers.  ...  I  have  always  spoken  and  written  of 
Shaw  as  the  biggest  Englishman  of  his  time,  the  only 
original  and  fine  mind  of  his  day;  and  his  character, 
too,  is  as  nobly  independent  as  his  mind;  but  he  has 
brought  up  with  him  from  earlier  years  a  sort  of 
tartness  which  I  do  not  care  for.  By  the  way,  I  am 
amused  by  discovering  that  he  thinks  the  same  of  me, 
for  he  advises  me  in  his  latest  letter,  to  put  vinegar 
and  not  bitter  into  my  salad.  I  suppose  because  we 
are  both  standing  on  somewhat  the  same  level,  and 
looking  at  much  the  same  things,  we  cannot  under- 
stand the  tremendous  discrepancies  of  vision.  .  .  . 
You  say  you  will  never  be  able  to  see  with  me  as  to 
the  Bible,  and  you  scoff  at  divine  perfection.  The 
portrait  of  Jesus,  you  say,  is  "  inhumanly  perfect." 
True,  true,  true — but  there  is  no  chapter  in  all  litera- 
ture to  me  greater  than  the  last  chapter  of  Ecclesi- 
astes.  Job,  too,  is  a  great  work,  and  Isaiah,  and 


the  Song  of  Solomon.  And  then  there  is  Jesus  and 
Paul — Paul  a  greater  St.  Bernard — the  greatest  of 
all  the  saints  militant.  And  Jesus,  the  man  who  first 
discovered  the  soul  and  first  brought  love  into  life, 
made  it  the  principle  of  all  our  actions,  the  Sun  of 
all  our  seeing.  He  had  imperfections  enough.  I 
always  see  his  hands  in  the  hair  of  Mary  Magdalene, 
and  she  is  not  at  his  feet  but  on  his  heart.  Where  else 
did  he  learn  "  Much  shall  be  forgiven  her,  for  she 
loved  much?"  He  made  lots  of  mistakes,  and  then 
that  final  mistake,  the  going  up  to  Jerusalem 
heralded  by  triumph  on  all  the  sunlit  ways — "  Blessed 
is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord."  Was 
there  ever  such  a  divine  blunder? 

March  27,  1917. 

Another  milestone  on  the  dreadful  road,  another 
month's  magazine  edited.  I  got  on  board  a  water- 
logged ship  in  July  last.  Now  I've  stopped  the  big 
leaks  and  the  ship  is  sea-worthy.  A  last  effort  and 
I  shall  probably  get  the  last  few  years  of  my  life 
free  from  money  troubles  and  a  chance  to  write  four 
or  five  terrible  and  beautiful  volumes  of  autobiog- 
raphy, truer  and  more  joyful  than  anything  yet  con- 
ceived. What  do  you  think  of  that?  How  I  kissed 
the  girls  and  met  my  peers  and  joyed  and  feasted 
and  loved  and  had  a  great  life,  able  every  year  to 
mark  growth  right  up  to  the  present  time.  A  gor- 
geous delightful  life  which  has  shown  me  every  cor- 
ner of  this  wonderful  world ;  for  I  lived  in  the  great- 
est period  of  recorded  time,  saw  the  first  airship,  a 
ship  heavier  than  air,  rise  from  the  ground  and  circle 
over  me,  with  thunder  of  machines  working,  and  then 


FRANK   HARRIS  119 

soar  higher  and  higher  into  the  blue  above  the  startled 
birds  while  we  below  gazed  in  ecstasy  through  tears 
of  joy.  I  saw,  too,  the  first  submarine  and  knew  that 
man  having  conquered  the  sea  and  air  would  go  on 
until  he  conquered  ether  too  and  could  visit  this  star 
and  that  planet.  For  the  moment  he  could  measure 
the  movement  of  the  stars  by  mathematical  formulae 
of  his  own  conceiving;  the  moment  laws  in  his  mind 
are  laws  by  which  the  suns  grow  and  move  and  have 
their  being,  he  possesses  the  key  to  the  universe  and 
can  solve  all  problems,  gratify  his  every  desire.  He 
is  a  god  incarnate  and  can  make  of  life  what  he  will. 
And  instead  of  realizing  the  vision  splendid,  he  is  in- 
tent now  on  murdering  his  fellowman  and  stealing 
his  territory  and  his  trade,  and  is  altogether  given  over 
to  hatreds  and  vileness ;  he  is  making  of  the  fairest  of 
lands  a  butcher's  shop,  where  human  beings  are  being 
carved  and  killed  by  the  thousand.  The  silly  little 
brute.  No  wonder  my  heart  grows  sick — 

How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long 
Shall  thy  servant  linger; 
She  who  shall  right  the  wrong, 
And  make  the  oppressed  strong, 
Sweet  morrow  bring  her! 

Never  mind;  the  sun's  still  shining;  love  is  still  pos- 
sible, and  no  one  who  knows  what  beauty  is  can  wish 
to  die. 

'April  30,  1918. 

You  ask  me  what  I  think  of  Wells  and  whether 
I  have  done  any  portrait  of  him.  You  say  you  are 
greatly  interested  in  him.  I  was  more  interested  in 


120     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

him  in  the  beginning  than  in  anyone,  but  when  his 
great  success  came  with  "  Tono  Bungay  "  and  "  Ann 
Veronica  "  I  found  it  impossible  to  read  him.  I  read 
the  first  chapters  of  "  Machiavelli "  with  intensest 
interest,  and  then  broke  off  altogether.  "  Mr.  Brit- 
ling  "  I  forced  myself  to  read  from  start  to  finish; 
there  are  some  good  bits  in  it  towards  the  end,  a  page 
or  two  that  has  been  lived,  but  the  whole  thing  is 
insular,  over-strained,  silly,  and  I'm  sure  nobody  will 
read  it  in  the  future.  I  have  no  patience  with  the 
fellow  and  his  nonsensical  diatribes  against  the  Ger- 
mans whom  he  knows  nothing  about.  Surely  we  can 
fight  the  Germans  without  shrieking  filthy  insults  at 
them  as  if  we  were  corner  boys  in  a  low  prize-fight. 
It  humiliates  me  that  Wells  and  Arnold  Bennett 
should  be  such  fools.  All  the  best  books  on  the  war 
have  come  from  French  sources.  "  Le  Feu "  of 
Henri  Barbusse  is  worth  more  than  all  the  English 
have  written.  Wells's  "  God  "  books,  too,  are  inept; 
they  expose  his  innate  silliness;  he  writes  like  a 
bishop!  When  I  first  knew  him  he  had  a  strong 
cockney  accent  and  talked  about  "  lydies,"  and  now 
he  puts  on  airs  and  an  Oxford  accent  that  would 
bear.  But  the  man  who  can  go  so  utterly  wrong  over 
this  wretched  war  is  not  one  of  the  sacred  guides 
who  steer  humanity.  Fancy  his  saying  that  Germany 
must  be  blotted  out!  I  wonder  how  many  Wellses 
we  would  sacrifice  rather  than  blot  out  Germany? 
The  chief  thing  about  great  men  is  that  they  belong 
to  no  country  and  hardly  to  any  time;  they  may 
be  shadows  but,  like  all  shadows,  point  to  the  sun. 
.  .  .  The  moral  aspect  of  the  war  has  changed. 
The  shameful  aggressions  of  the  Germans  in  Russia, 


FRANK   HARRIS  121 

the  disgraceful  stealing  of  Batoum  and  Kars,  and 
the  handing  over  of  the  whole  of  that  fertile  prov- 
ince of  Georgia  to  the  unspeakable  Turk,  is  one  of 
those  crimes  that  can  never  be  forgiven,  and  for  a 
year  now  I  have  seen  that  the  Germans  must  be 
beaten.  We  go  perpetually  the  wrong  way  about  it, 
but  still  it  will  be  done;  so,  for  the  first  time,  I  am 
at  one  with  my  kind,  and  though  not  so  savage  as 
the  majority  of  men  have  managed  to  make  them- 
selves, perhaps  not  less  determined.  .  .  .  You  ask 
for  details  of  my  daily  life.  I  wake  about  eight  in 
the  morning,  get  a  grape-fruit  and  a  couple  of  cups 
of  tea  and  write  or  dictate  till  twelve-thirty;  then  I 
get  up  and  dress.  I  try  to  go  out  for  five  or  ten 
minutes'  walk  or  run  before  my  lunch  at  one-thirty; 
from  two- thirty  to  three-thirty  I  snoozel;  at  three- 
thirty  I  go  to  the  office  to  see  people,  deal  with  cor- 
respondence, calls,  etc.;  from  six  to  seven-thirty  I 
take  a  walk  if  I  can;  then  I  come  in  and  have  a  cup 
of  soup,  no  bread;  afterwards  I  either  read  or  cor- 
rect manuscript  till  one  o'clock.  Then  I  am  sup- 
posed to  go  to  bed;  but  if  I  have  taken  any  coffee 
during  the  day,  and  it  is  a  perpetual  temptation  to 
me,  I  probably  do  not  sleep  till  three  or  four  and 
pay  for  it  by  feeling  tired  and  worn  out  next  morn- 
ing. .  .  . 

June  12,  1918. 

I  had  no  idea,  till  I  got  your  letter,  that  the  Rus- 
sians had  behaved  badly  in  Asia  Minor.  You  say 
the  Russian  has  done  his  job  by  "  absolute  savagery." 
I  have  always  liked  and  admired  the  Russians  im- 
mensely. The  Turk  has  been  guilty  of  savagery 


122     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

again  and  again — we  have  proofs  of  that — and  worse 
savagery  of  all,  has  given  himself  up  to  mere  selfish 
sensuality;  but  the  Russian  has  done  fine  work  and 
I  think  will  found  a  very  high  civilization,  though 
I'm  afraid  the  Bolsheviki  have  bitten  off  more  than 
they  can  chew.  Still,  I  have  met  Lenin  and  Trotzky, 
and  have  a  very  high  opinion  of  them.  Trotzky  spent 
a  few  hours  with  me  the  day  before  he  left  America. 
I  begged  him  to  be  content  with  getting  the  land 
for  the  people,  but  he  was  sure  that  the  Russian  peo- 
ple were  ripe  for  a  complete  social  revolution.  I  am 
afraid  he  was  mistaken.  .  .  . 

August  3,  1918. 

They  have  given  up  trying  to  call  me  a  pro- 
German  here  and  now  say  I  am  anti-British,  the  one 
label  being  as  absurd  as  the  other.  .  .  .  Curious,  is 
it  not,  that  poor  old  crusted  Tory  Lansdowne  should 
write  so  nobly  in  favor  of  reason  and  peace,  and  men 
with  a  real  touch  of  genius  like  Lloyd  George  should 
write  so  ignobly  and  stupidly?  But  if  I  said  even 
this  much  they  would  declare  here  that  I  was  writing 
against  England:  "  stabbing  England  in  the  back  " 
is  the  favorite  American  expression  now.  God  help 
us  all,  for  we  have  fallen  on  evil  days  and  evil 
tongues!  Your  appreciation  of  my  work  is  a  per- 
petual incentive  to  me,  and  I  need  some  incentive. 
I'm  tired  to  death  and  growing  weary.  I  shan't  be 
sorry  to  say  the  Nunc  Dimittis.  Men  are  more 
idiotic  than  ever! 

September  5,  1919. 

While  you  are  fighting  flies  and  fleas  in  Bagdad, 
I  am  fighting  to  get  some  money  in  America,  so 


FRANK   HARRIS  123 

that  I  may  return  as  quickly  as  possible  to  Paris  and 
write  my  autobiography.  First,  however,  I  want  to 
go  round  the  world  for  the  third  time.  I  want  to  go 
through  Siberia  to  Petrograd  and  see  Lenin  and 
Trotzky  and  their  wonderful  communist  republic. 
Then  I  want  to  go  to  Germany — to  Berlin  and 
Dresden,  then  to  Vienna,  then  to  Munich  and 
through  north  Italy  to  Paris.  I  want  three  volumes 
of  my  autobiography  to  be  terminated  by  these  three 
voyages  round  the  world.  The  first  that  ended  in 
'76,  the  next  in  '95,  and  then  this  third  one  now.  Up 
to  the  entrance  of  America  into  the  war  I  did  not  age 
in  my  opinion.  I  was  just  as  keen  about  life  and 
living  as  ever ;  filled  with  hope  in  the  development  of 
man  and  in  his  spiritual  growth.  Two  years  in 
America  under  this  cursed  Wilson  regime  have  al- 
most broken  me.  I  do  not  mean  in  health,  but  in 
hope  and  belief  in  humanity.  He  is  such  a  hypocrite, 
such  a  liar.  He  has  debased  the  moral  currency  of 
the  world  and  I  want  to  plead  for  his  impeachment, 
but  I  can  get  no  one  to  listen.  Americans  care  for 
nothing  except  getting  rich ;  a  pretty  wife  and  a  new 
motor  car  are  all  they  think  of.  I  want  to  get  away 
from  the  thin  mouths  and  heavy  jaws  and  brainless 
greed  of  the  Common.  Bacon's  great  word  is  ever 
in  my  mouth:  "  The  crowd  incapable  of  perfectness." 
This  country  has  taught  me  good  things  in  England ; 
that  the  aristocracy,  besides  giving  the  standard  of 
manners,  keeps  up  the  standard  of  honor.  Here 
there  are  no  manners  and  no  honor  and  as  little  hon- 
esty as  possible.  Oh,  I  am  sick  at  heart,  sick  to 
death.  But  what  is  the  use  of  giving  a  younger  man 
my  discouragements  and  disappointments,  my  doubt- 


124)     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

ings  and  despair.  The  ruin  of  Vienna  affects  me  as 
a  personal  injury.  It  was  the  only  capital  besides 
Paris  and  London  that  had  a  soul,  and  this  Wilson 
has  killed  it.  No  wonder  I  call  Wilson,  George  and 
Clemenceau,  the  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil. 
And  now  I  am  going  to  write  my  leader  for  this 
month's  magazine — "  The  League  of  Dam-Nations 
by  Greed  out  of  Lies."  .  .  .  After  going  round  the 
world,  I  will  get  back  to  Paris  and  spend  three  or 
four  years  writing  these  three  or  four  volumes  of 
autobiography,  and  then  I  want  to  pull  the  curtain 
down  and  go  out.  I  have  had  enough  of  the  show. 
The  last  act  that  I  thought  would  crown  all  has 
turned  the  great  drama  into  the  commonest  knock- 
out farce,  and  the  taste  of  it  is  in  my  mouth  and  will 
be  till  I  die. 


VI 
LYTTON  STRACHEY 

THIS  is  a  biographical  age.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
literature  of  our  country,  biography  as  an  independ- 
ent art  is  coming  into  its  own.  Until  now  we  have 
had  no  conscious  art  of  biography.  I  say  this  in  spite 
of  the  very  obvious  art  in  such  works  as  BoswelFs 
"  Johnson,"  and  Mrs.  Gaskell's  "  Brontes."  But  if 
art  means  anything,  it  means  selection ;  and  until  the 
year  1910  it  had  never  entered  into  the  head  of  any 
biographer  that  his  work  could  be  as  free  of  its  sub- 
ject as  the  Venus  of  Milo,  the  Falstaff  of  Shakes- 
peare, or  the  Philip  of  Velasquez.  When  all's  said, 
the  art  of  the  biographer  is  the  art  of  the  dramatist. 
He  has  a  story  to  tell  and  a  portrait  to  paint.  If 
the  story  is  to  grip,  it  must  have  its  climax  in  the 
right  place,  its  drama  artistically  presented.  If  the 
portrait  is  to  live,  it  must  be  painted  in  shadows  and 
high-lights;  the  many-colored  mantle  of  life  must  be 
shown  in  true  perspective;  hidden  motives  must  be 
revealed,  the  mainsprings  of  action  brought  to  light, 
the  soul  of  man  exposed  to  view. 

When  Boswell  set  out  to  write  his  "  Life  of  John- 
son," he  started  with  the  conscious  object  of  getting 
as  much  of  Johnson  on  to  paper  as  he  could.  Every 
letter  that  Johnson  wrote,  every  trivial  detail  of  his 
everyday  life,  every  comment  he  made  on  any  stupid 
occurrence — nothing  was  too  absurd,  too  slight,  too 

125 


126    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

redundant  for  inclusion.  The  consequence  is  that  we 
get  an  amazing  mass  of  material  which,  because  of 
the  author's  narrative  charm,  is  wonderfully  enter- 
taining, but  the  essential  Johnson  is  lost  in  the  maze. 
Boswell's  extraordinary  knack  of  making  "  good 
copy  "  has  blinded  his  critics  to  the  central  fault  of 
the  book.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of  the  Insignifi- 
cant. .  .  . 

Bozzy's  monumental  work  practically  laid  waste 
the  art  of  biography  as  practiced  by  many  eminent 
writers  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Lockhart,  Foster, 
Froude  and  the  rest  imagined  (poor  innocent  souls!) 
that  the  Gospel  must  be  written  according  to  St. 
Boswell,  and  they  labored  away  at  their  dreary 
tomes  with  a  painstaking  solicitude  which  one  cannot 
sufficiently  admire — and  pity!  They  all  told  at  great 
length  everything  about  their  heroes  that  no  one 
wanted  to  know.  They  succeeded  magnificently  in 
burying  their  giants  under  a  mountain  of  facts.  Until 
the  year  1910  there  was  hardly  a  biography  in  the 
English  language  that  would  not  have  been  improved 
out  of  all  recognition  by  being  cut  down  to  half  its 
published  size;  and  even  then,  not  one  of  them  (ex- 
cept Boswell  and,  perhaps,  Mrs.  Gaskell)  would  be 
as  interesting  as  a  good  novel. 

The  mere  suggestion  that  a  biography  should  be 
as  interesting  as  a  novel  will  make  some  people  stare. 
But  if  an  artist  cannot  make  a  single  subject  drawn 
from  real  life  a  thousand  times  more  absorbing  than 
a  whole  gallery  of  imaginative  characters,  he  had 
better  diet  himself  on  opium.  And  that  is  where  the 
whole  trouble  lies.  We  have  had  no  artist-biog- 
raphers. All  our  so-called  great  biographers  have 


LYTTON    STRACHEY  127 

been  either  slavish  disciples  of  the  men  they  have 
tried  to  depict,  or  mere  hack-work  journalists.  They 
have  been  incapable  both  of  art  and  truth.  They  have 
laboriously  manufactured  their  heroes'  shrouds.  .  .  . 

Quietly,  in  the  year  1910,  the  first  great  bio- 
graphical work  of  art  in  the  English  language  was 
finished.  Quietly,  too,  privately  printed  and  sub- 
scribed for,  it  was  issued  in  1916.  The  author, 
Frank  Harris,  had  recreated  his  subject,  Oscar 
Wilde,  and  unfolded  the  astounding  drama,  with  an 
unequaled  intimacy,  power,  vividness  and  truth.  It 
established  an  epoch  in  literary  history  and  created 
a  biographical  tradition  in  its  kind. 

Two  years  later,  Strachey's  "  Eminent  Victorians  " 
was  given  to  the  world.  The  world  received  it  with 
approbation.  The  world,  for  once,  was  quite  right. 
Strachey's  art — in  its  detached,  historical,  impersonal 
way — is  just  as  new  to  our  literature  as  Harris's.  He 
approaches  his  subjects,  of  course,  from  a  totally 
different  angle;  he  writes  as  a  student,  not  as  a 
friend;  but  he  has  all  the  probing  power,  the  high 
impartiality,  the  born  story-teller's  enchantment,  the 
emotion,  color,  truth,  creative  vitality  of  a  supreme 
artist.  There  is,  besides,  a  sub-current  of  ironic 
humor  in  his  work  that  gives  it  an  exquisite  flavoring 
and  supplies  the  personal  note,  the  ego-element, 
without  which  any  mere  display  of  literary  excel- 
lence is  cold  and  lifeless. 

Again,  in  his  "  Life  of  Queen  Victoria,"  Strachey 
played  ducks  and  drakes  with  our  academical  his- 
toriographers, and  wrote  a  book  as  free,  harmonious, 
independent  and  perfectly  balanced  as  the  finest 
novel  imaginable.  It  is  not  just  a  "  Life  of  Vic- 


128    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

toria  "  that  happens  to  be  a  work  of  art,  but  a  work 
of  art  that  happens  to  be  a  "  Life  of  Victoria."  In 
style,  treatment,  construction  and  poise  it  is  a  mas- 
terpiece, infinitely  more  fascinating  than  any  novel 
I  know,  and  incomparably  the  greatest  piece  of  his- 
torical biography  in  the  English  language.  .  .  . 

The  man  who  has  thus  lifted  biography  at  a  bound 
to  its  rightful  place  among  the  arts  is  not  easy  to 
describe.  Physically,  he  is  tall  and  thin,  and  one  has 
the  impression  that  he  is  exceptionally  frail.  He 
wears  spectacles,  has  a  fairly  long  reddish  beard  and 
brushes  his  hair  flat  across  the  head.  A  pointed,  thin 
nose  and  long,  narrow  face  accentuate  those  scholarly 
and  aristocratic  qualities  which  his  personality  and 
his  writings  suggest.  Perhaps  the  most  striking 
thing  about  him  at  a  first  glance  is  an  intense  and 
restless  nervousness.  This  gives  him  a  bashful  and 
timid  manner,  not  without  grace,  emphasized  by 
long,  tremulous,  tapering  fingers  and  a  high-pitched 
quavering  voice. 

Lytton  Strachey  is  nothing  if  not  diligent.  He 
doesn't  turn  his  work  out  with  the  feverish,  furtive 
haste  of  most  modern  authors.  Shortly  after  the  ap- 
pearance of  "  Queen  Victoria,"  I  was  lunching  with 
him  at  the  Cafe  Royal,  and  he  told  me  that  the  work 
and  study  he  had  expended  on  his  latest  biography 
had  left  him  tired  out.  "  I  have  to  bury  myself  in 
the  country  when  I  want  to  work,"  he  said;  "  it  isn't 
so  much  the  noises  of  London  that  prevent  concen- 
tration, but  the  constant  social  calls  upon  one's  time 
— the  exits  and  entrances.  It  has  taken  me  three 
years  solid  work  to  write  '  Victoria/  and  I  am  now 
suffering  from  mental  prostration." 


LYTTON    STRACHEY  129 

"  How  does  it  feel  to  be  the  author  of  a  best- 
seller? "  I  asked. 

"It  leaves  me  unmoved,"  he  rejoined;  "indeed 
the  success  of  my  work  is  beginning  to  make  me 
question  its  merit.  Can  a  popular  author  be  a  good 
one?" 

"  It's  uncommon,"  I  said,  "  but  it's  not  impossible. 
Look  at  Shakespeare  and  Shaw ! " 

"  I  wonder  if  Shakespeare  really  is  popular? "  he 
queried. 

"  Not  a  doubt  of  it!    Even  in  England!  "  I  cried. 

'  You  set  me  rather  a  high  standard !  "  he  returned. 
"  By  the  way,  have  you  ever  read  Johnson's  *  Lives 
of  the  Poets'?" 

'  Yes  and  no.  I  read  them  at  school,  which  is  as 
much  as  to  say  I've  forgotten  them.  Why? " 

"  Because  you  call  my  work  entirely  original.  You 
will  find  in  them  (shall  we  say?)  a  foretaste  of  the 
Stracheyan  artistry." 

He  appears  to  have  a  thorough-going  affection  for 
artificial  writers  in  general,  such  as  Congreve,  and 
for  the  eighteenth  century  in  particular.  He  speaks 
with  intense  admiration  of  Gibbon  and  Sterne;  and 
he  considers  Boswell's  Life  chiefly  remarkable  for 
the  sense  of  proximity  to  Johnson  one  is  made  to 
feel.  One  can  almost,  he  says,  hear  the  very  voice 
of  Johnson,  even  the  tone  of  voice  in  which  he  spoke. 

"  Why  don't  you  now  try  to  give  us  some  of  the 
big  Victorian  thinkers  and  artists? "  I  asked  him. 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then,  in  a  hesi- 
tating manner,  said :  "  I  think  I  shall  write  a  play 
next."  That  set  me  going.  He  listened  in  silence 
for  the  next  five  minutes  while  I  explained  why  it 


130    MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

was  vitally  necessary  that  he  should  stick  to  a  job 
he  can  do  better  than  anyone  else,  and  not  attempt 
a  job  he  couldn't  hope  to  do  as  well  as  Shaw.  At 
the  end  of  my  discourse  he  said :  "  Perhaps  you  are 
right." 

In  answer  to  further  questions,  he  told  me  he 
would  like  to  do  a  study  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  "  A 
'  History  of  the  World '  wants  writing,  too,"  he  re- 
marked: "it's  a  job  I'd  like  to  take  on.  It  should 
be  printed  in  a  single,  neat,  easily-portable  volume. 
The  whole  thing  must  be  a  compact  condensation  of 
essential  facts — not  a  series  of  moral  strictures  on 
eminent  people,  like  most  histories." 

He  spoke  enthusiastically  of  Charles  Darwin — a 
great  subject  for  a  biography,  he  said. 

"  What  about  Disraeli?"  I  questioned:  "there's 
drama  for  you — and  character!" 

"  I  can't  make  him  out,"  Strachey  answered ;  "his 
character  is  so  utterly  contradictory.  Think  of  his 
cynicism  and  his  child-like  love  of  place!  The  two 
things  don't  go  together.  How  could  such  a  bril- 
liant, witty  man  be  satisfied,  beglamored,  by  such  a 
paltry  thing  as  a  Premiership?  His  novels  are  ex- 
traordinarily clever — and  yet  one  is  faced  with  the 
monstrous  fact  that  their  author  fell  in  love  with 
the  Garter!" 

'  That  was  probably  the  Jew  in  him,"  I  suggested : 
"  with  an  Israelite,  the  realist  and  the  showman  go 
hand-in-hand.  .  .  ." 

But  it  isn't  really  of  the  least  importance  what  par- 
ticular subject  Lytton  Strachey  chooses  for  his  next 
work,  or  his  next  dozen  works.  He  can  relume  the 
pageant  of  history  and  give  its  personalities  the 


LYTTON    STRACHEY  131 

breath  of  life.  In  his  hands  a  second-rate  man  like 
Cardinal  Manning  or  Dr.  Arnold  can  shine  with  all 
the  luster  of  an  immortal  character  in  romance;  and 
a  great  figure  like  Gordon  or  Florence  Nightingale 
can  assume  epic  significance.  The  tedious  becomes 
fascinating  when  touched  by  the  magic  of  his  pen. 

One  can  only  compare  him  with  himself.    He  is 
the  Strachey  of  biographers.  .  .  . 


VII 
SIR  JOHNSTON  FORBES-ROBERTSON 

AN  unique,  a  flawless,  executive  artist — much  too 
perfect  to  arouse  vast  enthusiasm  or  fail  to  get  con- 
siderable applause,  much  too  rare  to  score  any  tre- 
mendous failures  or  reach  any  colossal  heights.  Not 
a  romantic,  but  a  classical  actor.  Such  was  Forbes- 
Robertson.  Hence  his  comparative  failure  in  all  the 
romantic  Shakespearean  parts  he  played :  hence,  also, 
his  supreme  success  as  Hamlet  and  Julius  Caesar. 
These  were,  in  fact,  his  only  big  achievements  in  the 
later  years.  The  rest  of  the  plays  in  his  repertoire 
were  unimportant  and  need  not  detain  us.  He  did 
practically  nothing  for  the  stage,  he  gained  no  excep- 
tional prestige :  but  he  produced  the  greatest  tragedy 
and  the  greatest  historical  drama  in  our  language, 
acting  the  protagonists  of  both  in  such  a  faultless 
manner,  that  one  simply  had  to  realize  the  absurdity 
of  criticizing  either  performance.  Actors  with  not 
half  his  skill  had  big  moments  the  like  of  which  he 
never  knew,  for  the  little  is  as  often  great  as  the 
great  is  little.  He  never  soared,  never  had  large  con- 
ceptions, but  executed  with  absolute  nicety  what  he 
understood.  And,  believe  me,  he  understood  Ham- 
let, as  Hamlet  was  never  understood  before.  He 
grasped  the  primal  truth  about  Hamlet:  that  he  is 
not  a  bunch  of  romantic  possibilities  and  hidden 
meanings.  Indeed,  the  only  thing  that  has  never  been 

132 


FORBES-ROBERTSON  133 

said  about  Hamlet  is  the  only  thing  worth  saying 
about  him:  that  he  is  the  essence  of  simplicity.  The 
reason  that  Shakespeare  made  Hamlet  pretend  mad- 
ness is  undiscoverable  because  there  is  no  reason. 
Had  Shakespeare  been  adaptable  to  mere  reason,  he 
would  have  been  incapable  of  creating  Hamlet. 
Genius  is  the  most  utterly  unreasonable  thing  in  the 
universe,  but  it  is  always  simple.  It  is  the  unim- 
aginative pedant  who  takes  refuge  in  complexity. 
Shakespeare,  like  all  geniuses,  never  left  school,  which 
means  that  he  never  ceased  putting  his  tongue  out 
at  the  professors!  And  every  succeeding  age  has 
produced  a  further  batch  of  professors  (we  call  them 
critics  nowadays)  who  have  qualified  for  a  lunatic 
asylum  in  their  logical  endeavors  to  prove  that  Ham- 
let was  mad.  Again  and  again  Shakespeare  spoke 
his  heart  from  under  the  jester's  cap  and  bells. 
Surely  this  ought  to  have  put  the  academic  owls  and 
bardolatrous  bats  on  the  track  of  the  Hamlet  idea! 
"  Invest  me  in  my  motley ;  give  me  leave  to  speak 
my  mind  " — this  is  the  text  for  the  exuberant,  super- 
abundant genius.  The  desire  of  Jacques  becomes 
the  vesture  of  Hamlet — just  Shakespeare  letting  off 
steam,  cleansing  his  bosom  of  much  "  perilous  stuff," 
giving  his  soul  an  outlet  through  the  mask  of  in- 
sanity. Nothing  is  so  surely  diagnostic  of  genius 
as  a  kind  of  wild,  illogical  gayety. 

No  literary  criticism  of  Hamlet  was  worth  two- 
pence by  the  side  of  Forbes-Robertson's  dramatic 
explanation  of  him.  The  whole  thing  from  start  to 
finish  was  final  in  its  exquisite  simplicity;  nothing 
could  possibly  be  said  from  any  other  point  of  view. 

Leaving  entirely  on  one  side  the  actor's  extraor- 


134    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

dinary  physical  grace  and  the  organ-music  of  his 
marvelous  voice,  he  was  the  only  artist  of  his  time— 
I  dare  guess  of  any  time — who  was  Hamlet  in  ges- 
ture and  speech.  He  lived  in  the  period  and  spoke 
its  language.  Poetry  was  his  natural  medium  of 
expression  and  medieval  dress  his  fitting  habit.  One 
never  felt  that  he  was  assuming  a  period  not  his  own 
or  a  speech  foreign  to  his  everyday  conversation.  He 
did  not  have  to  act  Hamlet :  he  came  to  life  as  Ham- 
let. The  character  as  he  conceived  it  (having  already 
been  conceived  in  precisely  the  same  manner  by  the 
author)  was  the  embodiment  of  humanity's  soul,  not, 
as  other  actors  seem  to  imagine,  its  sentiment.  He 
epitomized  the  fine  not  the  common  aspirations  of 
mankind.  His  was  the  only  Hamlet  who  would  ac- 
tually have  jumped  into  Ophelia's  grave — the  rest 
would  have  dropped  flowers  into  it.  What  I  mean 
is  that  he  was  more  furious  at  Laertes'  ridiculously 
theatrical  behavior  than  grieved  at  the  cause  for  it. 
His  "  rogue  and  peasant  slave  "  soliloquy  was  not 
devised  for  the  purpose  of  calling  the  king  unpleas- 
ant names,  but  in  order  to  find  a  reason  for  his  own 
peculiarity.  He  arrives  at  the  conclusion  (impolitely 
expressed  by  himself  of  course)  that  he  can't  behave 
in  the  usual  conventional  way.  When  he  says  that 
he  is  "  pigeon-livered  "  he  does  not  mean  to  imply 
that  he  is  chicken-hearted,  but  that  he  is  not  morally 
respectable.  In  short,  he  discovers  himself  to  be  a 
man  with  a  mind  instead  of  a  man  with  orthodox 
opinions. 

If  Goethe  or  Coleridge  had  seen  this  performance, 
they  wouldn't  have  written  criticisms  on  "  Hamlet  "; 
they  would  simply  have  said:  "  Go  and  see  Forbes- 


FORBES-ROBERTSON  135 

Robertson."  People  who  have  been  lucky  enough 
to  see  it,  but  who  still  prefer  the  romantic  tours  de 
force  and  stage  pauses  of  other  actors,  should  con- 
tinue or  commence  to  patronize  melodrama  and  mu- 
sical comedy.  It  is  just  possible  they  may  appre- 
ciate the  rest  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  the, majority 
of  which  are  romantic  melodramas  or  poetic-musical 
comedies,  but  they  certainly  can't  appreciate  "  Ham- 
let." They  have  still  to  be  modernized  and  still  to 
get  a  soul.  Forbes-Robertson's  "  Hamlet  "  was  the 
only  Shakespearean  performance  one  could  see 
twenty  times  (and  twice  in  one  day)  yet  wish  to  go 
on  seeing  it  twenty  times  twenty.  After  which,  there 
is  nothing  more  to  be  said. 

When  an  actor  has  a  part  written  for  him  (as 
Shaw  wrote  "  Caesar  "  for  Robertson)  one  may  be 
sure  the  author  considers  the  actor  worthy  of  it. 
This  being  so,  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  no  actor  in  the  world's  history  was  ever  so  highly 
complimented  as  Forbes-Robertson.  Also,  the  high- 
est possible  praise  of  Robertson's  art  is  just  this:  he 
was  worthy  of  it.  First,  he  had  the  Caesarian  features 
and  the  Caesarian  build — though  I'm  pretty  certain 
Caesar  hadn't  his  voice.  Next,  he  was  born  with  the 
Caesarian  modernity  and  dignity;  his  inflections  gave 
the  essential  measure  of  Caesar's  culture  and  nobility. 
Mommsen,  in  that  astonishing  revelation  of  Caesar's 
genius  which  so  largely  helps  to  give  his  book  chief 
place  among  historical  works,  showing  as  it  does  a 
faculty  for  acute  perception  which  no  other  historian 
can  lay  claim  to,  says :  "If  in  a  nature  so  harmoni- 
ously organized  there  is  any  one  trait  to  be  singled 
out  as  characteristic,  it  is  this — that  he  stood  aloof 


136    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

from  all  ideology  and  everything  fanciful.  As  a 
matter  of  course,  Caesar  was  a  man  of  passion,  for 
without  passion  there  is  no  genius;  but  his  passion 
was  ever  under  his  control."  This  was  exactly  the 
impression  Forbes-Robertson's  acting  gave.  He 
played  the  great  statesman,  letting  us  into  his  mind 
and  way  of  thought  so  superbly,  that  on  the  strength 
of  this  performance  alone,  a  nation  of  intellectual 
aristocrats  might  have  made  him  Prime  Minister  on 
the  spot.  Though  I  ought  to  add  that  a  nation  of 
supermen  would  have  promptly  crowned  Caesar's 
creator. 

There  was  something  haunting  about  Robertson's 
Caesar.     When  he  bade  farewell  to  his  soldiers  and 
to  Egypt  at  the  end  of  the  play,  one  felt  that  the  sun 
was  undergoing  eclipse,  that  clouds  were  passing  over 
its  face.     Rufio  and  the  rest  stood  there  as  the  ship 
left  the  quay  with  shadows  flickering  amongst  them, 
the  light  of  their  days  burning  low  in  its  socket. 
Something  had,  one  felt,  gone  out  of  their  lives— 
and  out  of  our  lives.    It  was  as  if  a  friend  had  died. 
A  strange  thing,  this — the  haunting  quality  of  art— 
a  sure  passport  to  immortality.    Shaw  makes  us  feel 
it  all  through,  as  he  makes  Cleopatra  feel  it.    A  won- 
derful personality — at  once  Shavian  and  Caesarian— 
moves  through  the  play,  a  big  influence  to  fine  think- 
ing and  a  morality  far  higher  than  the  one  we  know. 

What  a  splendid  tribute  to  Forbes-Robertson! 
Without  him,  a  masterpiece  of  art  might  not  have 
ennobled  an  era.  With  him,  dramatic  literature  has 
been  enriched  beyond  present  calculation ;  and  a  mag- 
nificent creation  was  inspired  by  his  personal  charm 
and  the  perfection  of  his  wonderful  art. 


VIII 
STEPHEN  PHILLIPS 

IT  is  strange  how  popularity  and  success  can  ruin  a 
man  both  morally  and  artistically.  The  career  of 
Stephen  Phillips  was  meteoric.  He  shot  up  and  he 
shot  down.  I  am  told  he  reached  an  equilibrium  to- 
wards the  end,  but  he  went  utterly  out  of  my  life  in 
1910,  and  I  never  even  saw  him  again. 

I  sometimes  question  whether  his  work  will  live. 
Most  of  it  was  too  obviously  the  direct  product  of  a 
fleeting,  though  temporarily  immense,  success.  Still, 
there  was  about  his  finest  lyrical  outbursts  a  quality, 
a  sort  of  ecstasy,  that  we  can  hardly  find  matched 
among  that  ever-growing  throng  of  poets  whom  we 
call  "  Minor."  Undeniably  he  was  a  minor  poet,  but 
he  was  also,  now  and  again,  capable  of  a  major  key. 
"  Paolo  and  Francesca  "  immediately  took  a  definite 
place  in  English  poetic  drama.  It  was  a  stage  suc- 
cess and  a  thing  of  beauty — a  combination  unique 
outside  Shakespeare.  And  if  he  failed  afterwards  to 
keep  the  level  reached  in  "  Paolo,"  we  must  remem- 
ber that  there  has  only  been  one  Shakespeare,  and 
refuse  to  dismiss  Phillips  as  negligible  for  not  being 
another.  Besides,  there  are  some  gorgeous  passages 
in  his  later  plays  which  almost  atone  for  their  other- 
wise bombastic  structure.  No  poet  would  benefit  so 
much  as  Phillips  by  a  Golden  Treasury  selection. 
He  was  essentially  a  man  of  moments ;  and  I  do  not 

137 


138    MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

think  I  am  over-estimating  him  in  saying  that  he  had 
more  moments  of  inspired  beauty  than  any  other 
minor  poet.  Many  of  his  phrases  are  tense  with  emo- 
tion of  a  very  rare  and  exalted  nature.  They  beat 
the  cage  of  word-expression  with  a  mighty  sweep. 
They  ring  and  resound  in  the  memory.  .  .  . 

One  day  in  the  year  1909,  I  was  dining  at  a  cafe 
in  East  Street,  Brighton.  About  half-way  through 
the  meal  three  men  came  in  and  took  a  table  next 
to  mine.  Two  of  them  had  apparently  been  playing 
golf  that  afternoon,  because  I  heard  the  third  chaf- 
fing them  about  it,  calling  them  typical  brainless 
Englishmen,  who  couldn't  use  their  time  to  better 
purpose  than  in  hitting  a  ball  about  a  links  and  chas- 
ing it.  "  Oh,  it's  all  very  well  for  you  to  talk  like 
that,  Phillips,"  replied  one  of  the  others,  "  but  we 
don't  write  poetry,  and  we  don't  waste  our  time  read- 
ing it."  The  two  words,  "  Phillips  "  and  "  poetry," 
made  me  sit  up.  I  turned  my  chair  slightly  to  get 
a  better  view  of  their  table,  and  had  my  first  look 
at  the  author  of  "  Paolo  and  Francesca."  .  .  . 

He  sat  with  his  elbows  on  the  table,  hunched-up 
and  ungainly-looking.  His  proportions  were  Fal- 
staffian.  His  belly  was  far  too  large,  and  he  didn't 
know  how  to  make  the  best  of  it.  The  chief  points 
about  his  face  were  a  very  square  jaw  and  a  set  and 
rather  cruel  expression — not  unlike,  I  imagined,  a 
Roman  Emperor  of  the  decadence,  except  for  the 
nose. 

As  the  dinner  at  the  next  table  progressed,  the  con- 
versation became  louder  and  more  acrid.  The  other 
diners  in  the  cafe  began  to  prick  up  their  ears,  and 
eventually  the  manager  had  to  ask  Phillips  to  mod- 


STEPHEN   PHILLIPS  139 

erate  either  his  voice  or  his  opinions.  This  brought 
a  storm  of  abuse  on  the  unfortunate  manager's  head. 
Phillips  turned  and  rent  him.  He  was  informed, 
firstly,  that  he  was  apparently  unaware  of  his  (the 
speaker's)  importance  in  the  literary  world,  secondly 
that  it  was  a  public  place  and  one  did  not  resort  to 
public  places  for  the  purpose  of  speaking  in  whis- 
pers, thirdly  that  England  had  often  been  called 
(wrongly  no  doubt)  a  free  country,  and  fourthly 
that  the  wine  at  this  particular  restaurant  was  un- 
drinkable!  I  did  not  stay  to  hear  the  end  of  the 
scene,  but  I  could  hear  Phillips's  high,  raucous  voice 
for  several  yards  down  the  street  outside. 

A  month  or  two  later  I  saw  him  again  and  experi- 
enced my  first  talk  with  him.  I  use  the  word  "  ex- 
perienced "  advisedly.  To  a  nervous  and  rather 
hesitant  youth,  as  I  was  then,  a  first  talk  with  Phillips 
in  his  post-halcyon  days  was  a  rather  alarming  ad- 
venture ;  especially  when  he  was  in  his  cups ;  and  dur- 
ing 1909  he  was  seldom  out  of  them. 

This  time  I  ran  across  him  in  a  common  or  garden 
pub,  which  I  used  to  visit  now  and  then  for  a  game 
of  billiards.  He  sat,  bunched  up,  in  a  corner,  with 
a  large  glass  of  whisky  by  his  side.  He  looked  very 
disreputable,  his  slouch  hat  drawn  well  over  his  eyes, 
and  he  seemed  to  glower  in  a  semi-fuddled  manner 
at  the  other  occupants  of  the  room.  I  took  my 
courage  in  both  hands  and  marched  up  to  him. 

"  May  I  introduce  myself,  sir?  "  I  asked. 

"  No,  you  mayn't!  "  he  snarled  back. 

I  turned  away  after  that,  and  was  just  leaving  the 
room  when  he  shouted  after  me : 

'  Who  the  devil  are  you,  anyway?  " 


140     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

Thus  encouraged,  I  ventured  again  timidly: 

"  My  name  is  Pearson." 

"  Don't  know  you,"  said  he,  and  then,  after  a  pause: 
"Don't  want  to  either!" 

"  You  are  very  polite,"  I  put  in. 

"  Go  to  hell!  "  he  rejoined. 

Taking  our  surroundings  into  consideration,  we 
were  getting  on  famously,  so  I  decided  to  stand  my 
ground. 

"  I  know  you,  though,"  I  proclaimed ;  "  you  are  the 
author  of  some  of  the  finest  verse  of  the  time,  and  I 
want  to  tell  you  how  much  I  admire  your  work." 

"  Rubbish !  "  he  answered :  "  that's  what  they  all 
say,  but  they  don't  encourage  me  to  go  on  with  it. 
A  poet  in  England  is  a  fool.  He  is  also  an  anachron- 
ism. England  doesn't  want  poets.  She  wants  Kip- 
lings.  In  fact  she  doesn't  know  what  she  wants — and 
I  hope  she  suffers  for  her  blasted  absentminded- 
ness ! " 

"  If  you'll  excuse  me  for  saying  it  .  .  . "  I  began. 

"  I  won't  excuse  you  for  anything,  damn  you!  "  he 
retorted. 

Obviously  he  was  not  a  man  to  waste  courtesy  over, 
so  I  didn't  ask  his  leave  for  any  further  remarks  I 
had  to  make. 

:'  Then  I  think  you  should  consider  yourself 
damned  lucky!  "  I  said,  adopting  his  lingo.  "  There 
are  a  dozen  poets  of  equal  genius  to  yourself  prac- 
tically starving,  or  doing  hack-work  to  keep  them- 
selves out  of  the  gutter;  while  you  have  had  success 
after  success,  greater  success  than  any  dramatic  poet 
has  had  since  Shakespeare.  I  really  don't  know  what 
you  have  got  to  grumble  about." 


STEPHEN    PHILLIPS  141 

"When  I  allowed  you  to  introduce  yourself  to 
me  .  .  .  . "  he  commenced. 

"You  didn't!  "I  cut  in. 

"  Be  silent!  "  he  shouted.  "  When,  I  repeat,  I  al- 
lowed you  to  address  me  without  giving  myself  the 
pleasure  of  kicking  your  backside,  I  imagined — God 
forgive  me! — that  you  might  have  something  to  say 
that  hasn't  already  been  said  by  every  Grub  Street 
growler  in  the  kingdom.  You  are  talking  poisonous 
rot,  man!  But  I  will  smother  my  present  inclination 
to  throw  a  glass  of  execrable  whisky  over  you,  be- 
cause I  want  you  to  name  the  dozen  poets  of  equal 
genius  to  myself  (as  you  so  abominably  phrase  it) 
and  also  because  you  do  not  appear  to  be  yet  out  of 
your  'teens." 

"  I  mentioned  a  dozen  at  random,"  I  replied.  "  But 
you  have  doubtless  heard  of  Davidson,  Watson, 
Noyes,  Newbolt  and  Bridges — to  say  nothing  of 
those  three  obscure  little  scribblers,  Hardy,  Mere- 
dith and  Swinburne." 

"  Don't  try  to  be  funny !  "  he  sneered :  "  humor  is 
not  a  virtue  of  the  cradle.  You'd  better  be  toddling 
home  now,  or  your  nurse  will  be  getting  nervous. 
Wait  a  moment,  though !  Now  you  are  here,  you  can 
make  yourself  useful.  Get  me  another  whisky." 

"  Delighted !  "  I  said :  "  I  had  no  idea  poets  could 
be  such  charming  companions."  And  without  wait- 
ing for  an  answer,  I  went  to  the  bar  and  ordered  his 
refreshment.  When  I  came  back,  he  appeared  to  be 
half -asleep,  and  I  had  to  poke  him  in  the  ribs  before 
lie  was  aware  of  my  return. 

"You  still  here!"  he  cried.  "Whatever  will 
Mammy  say?" 


142     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

"  Drink  that,  you  fat-gutted  old  beast,"  was  my 
not  altogether  genteel  rejoinder,  "  and  then  say  your 
prayers."  After  which  suitable  remark  I  quitted  the 
pub  without  more  ado. 

This  was  not  a  particularly  brilliant  start-off  for 
an  acquaintanceship.  I  certainly  did  not  intend  to 
continue  it.  But  fate  intended  it  otherwise.  I  saw 
him  again  and  again  after  that,  and  nearly  always 
he  addressed  me  with  a  mixture  of  politeness  and 
rudeness.  Here  are  a  few  of  his  odd  sayings  that 
have  stuck  in  my  memory : 

"  Hullo!  Still  studying  the  poets?  Why  not  try 
to  climb  Parnassus  yourself?  If  you  look  in  your 
atlas,  you  will  find  Parnassus  in  the  heart  of  Ger- 
many. The  railway  porters  of  that  country  read 
Shakespeare.  Have  a  drink!  " 

;<  The  only  truly  generous  people  in  the  world  are 
drunkards." 

"  I  can't  understand  the  pleasure  some  folk  derive 
from  motoring.  I  don't  go  into  the  country  to  enjoy 
man-made  mechanism.  And  I  don't  want  to  be 
jolted  until  I'm  in  my  coffin." 

'  The  romantic  attitude  towards  life  leads  to  the 
Thames  or  to  Hanwell.  Christ  was  crucified  because 
Jerusalem  had  neither.  I  prefer  a  public  house  to 
both." 

"  I  wrote '  Paolo  and  Francesca '  for  love, '  Herod  ' 
for  popularity, '  Ulysses  '  for  money,  and  '  Nero  '  for 
all  three." 

'  The  whole  art  of  argument  is  to  assume  that  the 
other  man  doesn't  know  what  he  is  talking  about." 

"  A  love  of  stomach  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom." 

One  day  I  asked  him  what  was  the  meaning  of  the 


STEPHEN    PHILLIPS  143 

line  in  "Paolo":  "O!  and  that  bluer  blue— that 
greener  green ! " 

"  I  haven't  the  least  idea,"  he  confessed:  "  I  am  a 
poet,  not  a  statistician." 

At  last  I  got  to  the  soul  of  the  man.  It  was  a 
rainy,  boisterous  day  towards  the  end  of  the  year.  I 
had  caught  sight  of  him  just  as  he  was  turning  into 
a  side  street  off  the  Brighton  front.  His  loose  cape, 
with  mackintosh  beneath,  ballooned  from  the  massive 
shoulders  as  he  struggled  round  the  corner.  Having 
nothing  better  to  do,  I  followed  him  into  his  den.  He 
was  reasonably  polite,  if  at  first  a  trifle  morose.  We 
drank  one  another's  healths  and  sat  down  by  the  fire. 
With  the  exception  of  a  moldy-looking  old  gentleman, 
who  was  busy  muttering  to  himself  in  another  corner, 
we  were  alone.  I  started  the  ball  rolling. 

'  Winy  did  you  suddenly  break  away  from  lyrical 
poetry  and  begin  writing  rhetorical  verse?  " 

'  Why  did  Shakespeare?  "  he  parried. 

"  He  didn't — not  in  the  sense  I  mean.  There  is 
even  a  strong  lyrical  current  beneath  the  stilted  style 
of  his  last  plays.  He  remained  a  poet  to  the  end — 
even  in  prose." 

"  And  is  there  no  poetry  in  my  *  Nero,'  my  '  Sin  of 
David5?  "he  asked. 

'  Yes;  of  a  high-falutin,  pretentious  kind.  But  it's 
the  work  of  a  poet  who's  running  away  from  poetry, 
not  of  a  poet  whose  poetry  is  running  away  with 
him." 

"  Ah,  but  I  had  to  take  time  by  the  forelock,  and 
a  poet  should  never  woo  the  success  I  sought  after." 
He  mused  a  while,  and  then  went  on :  "  Every  man 
Has  a  turning-point  in  his  career.  It's  merely  a  ques- 


144     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

tion  of  whether  he  keeps  to  the  path  he  set  out  on, 
or  side-tracks  his  ideals.  My  turning-point  came  im- 
mediately I  had  written  the  last  line  in  '  Paolo.' 
Every  rhythm  in  that  play  I  felt,  every  touch  of  true 
poetry  in  it  was  a  part  of  myself.  I,  too,  loved  as 
Paolo  loved.  This  was  my  very  cri  de  cceur — "  and 
he  recited  the  lines : 

O  God,  Thou  seest  us  Thy  creatures  bound 
Together  by  that  law  which  holds  the  stars 
In  palpitating  cosmic  passion  bright; 
By  which  the  very  sun  enthrals  the  earth, 
And  all  the  waves  of  the  world  faint  to  the  moon* 
Even  by  such  attraction  we  two  rush 
Together  through  the  everlasting  years. 
Us,  then,  whose  only  pain  can  be  to  part, 
How  wilt  Thou  punish?     For  what  ecstasy 
Together  to  be  blown  about  the  globe! 
What  rapture  in  perpetual  fire  to  burn 
Together! — where  we  are  is  endless  fire. 
There  centuries  shall  in  a  moment  pass, 
And  all  the  cycles  in  one  hour  elapse! 
Still,  still  together,  even  when  faints  Thy  sun, 
And  past  our  souls  Thy  stars  like  ashes  fall, 
How  wilt  Thou  punish  us  who  cannot  part? 

He  recited  musically,  in  a  high-pitched  monotone, 
with  a  keener  feeling  for  sound  than  for  sense.  When 
he  came  to  the  end,  he  paused  for  a  few  seconds. 
Then,  weighing  his  words  with  a  care  not  at  all  char- 
acteristic of  him,  he  proceeded: 

"  But  I  couldn't  keep  to  that  level  in  poetry  or  in 
life.  I  wasn't  strong  enough.  Things  happened. 
Stupid,  vexing  things.  And  I  was  ambitious.  I 


STEPHEN    PHILLIPS  145 

wanted  renown.  ...  I  love  life  too  well — the  good, 
comfortable  things  of  life.  I  sacrificed  my  poetry  for 
pounds  and  pence.  Though  (who  knows?)  perhaps 
I  had  no  more  of  the  real  stuff  in  me.  A  poet  must 
live  his  poems;  and  when  he  ceases  to  live  them,  he 
ceases  to  write  them.  ...  I  lost  the  poetry  of  life 
shortly  after  *  Paolo  '  was  written,  and  a  hunger  for 
the  easy,  pleasant  things  came  in  its  place.  Since 
then,  I  have  written  my  dramas  for  money — only 
money.  And  why  not?  It's  the  next  best  thing  to 
love." 

I  suppose  I  had,  in  a  dim  sort  of  way,  divined  as 
much  as  he  told  me,  because  I  remember  feeling  no 
surprise  at  it.  He  was  simply  a  sensualist,  a  full- 
blooded,  passionate  sensualist,  who,  whether  in  love  or 
in  drink,  indulged  himself  to  excess.  He  was  greedy 
for  life's  primitive  sensations,  and  his  desires  were  too 
violent  to  be  controlled.  This  explained  to  me  also 
his  sudden  falling  off  in  poetry.  The  desire  for  the 
high-sounding  phrase  had  over-topped  his  purely 
lyrical  gift  and  he  gave  way  to  it,  just  as  in  life  he 
had  allowed  the  coarser  things  to  force  back  the  gen- 
tler. He  wallowed  in  the  majestic  phrase  just  as  he 
wallowed  in  strong  drinks. 

We  talked  a  great  deal  that  afternoon,  and  it  was 
about  7  o'clock  when  we  parted.  He  touched  upon 
several  things  of  a  still  more  intimate  nature,  but  they 
shed  no  further  light  on  his  character,  so  there  is  no 
point  in  repeating  them  here.  .  .  . 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  in  1910,  when  I  found 
myself  by  his  side  at  the  counter  of  the  Brighton  post 
office.  We  were  both  buying  stamps  and  while  he 
was  fixing  one  on  to  an  envelope  he  remarked:  "  Dis- 


gusting  business,  this  stamp -licking!  Why  can't  we 
run  the  postal  service  without  filling  our  mouths  with 
gum?  "  I  recommended  the  suggestion  to  our  social 
reformers. 

Let  me,  finally,  try  to  do  justice  to  Stephen 
Phillips.  I  have  already  spoken  of  his  later  plays,  and 
his  "  Faust  "  and  "  Armageddon  "  show  poetical  pov- 
erty even  more  unmistakably  than  "  Ulysses." 
There  is,  however,  a  stern  simplicity  and  restrained 
beauty  about  his  very  last  work,  "  Harold,"  that 
speaks  more  eloquently  than  report  of  sounder  living 
towards  the  end. 

But,  when  every  allowance  is  made  and  the  ac- 
count finally  balanced,  it  is  "  Paolo  and  Francesca  " 
that  people  will  remember  him  by.  Shortly  after  his 
death,  Mrs.  Meynell  tried  hard  to  make  out  that  his 
best  work  was  in  the  1897  "  Poems."  But  it's  no 
good!  The  man  who  wrote  the  most  exquisite  love- 
duet  in  the  language  outside  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  is 
not  likely  to  be  remembered  for  anything  less  won- 
derful. This  is  where  Stephen  Phillips  gained  our 
first  and  lasting  gratitude.  Listen  to  the  liquid  love- 
liness of  it: 

P.  Now  fades  the  last 

Star  to  the  East:  a  mystic  breathing  comes: 
And  all  the  leaves  once  quivered,  and  were  still. 

F.  It  is  the  first,  the  faint  stir  of  the  dawn. 

P.  So  still  it  is  that  we  might  almost  hear 
The  t>igh  of  all  the  sleepers  in  the  world. 

F.  And  all  the  rivers  running  to  the  sea. 
***** 

P.  Remember  how  when  first  we  met  we  stood 
Stung  with   immortal   recollections. 


STEPHEN    PHILLIPS  147 

0  face  immured  beside  a  fairy  sea, 

That  leaned  down  at  dead  midnight  to  be  kissed! 

O  beauty  folded  up  in  forests  old ! 

Thou  wast  the  lovely  quest  of  Arthur's  knights — 
F.  Thy  armor  glimmered  in  a  gloom  of  green. 
P.  Did  I  not  sing  to  thee  in  Babylon? 
F.  Or  did  we  set  a  sail  in  Carthage  bay? 
P.  Were  thine  eyes  strange? 
F.  Did  I  not  know  thy  voice? 

All  ghostly  grew  the  sun,  unreal  the  air 

Then  when  we  kissed. 
P.  And  in  that  kiss  our  souls 

Together  flashed;  and  now  they  are  as  flame, 

Which  nothing  can  put  out,  nothing  divide. 

And  the  deathless  pathos  of  Giovanni's  last  lines: 

She  takes  away  my  strength. 
I  did  not  know  the  dead  could  have  such  hair. 
Hide  them.     They  look  like  children  fast  asleep! 


IX 
FRANK  BENSON 

KING  GEOEGE  V  knighted  him,  but  for  the  purposes 
of  this  article  I  shall  dub  him  squire.  He  was  known 
all  over  the  country  as  F.  R.  Benson,  and  by  the 
members  of  his  own  company  affectionately  as  "  Pa." 
On  a  man  like  Benson,  knighthood  confers  no  honor 
and  no  dignity.  In  fact,  since  the  honor  became 
synonymous  for  success  in  the  making  of  soap,  butter, 
hair-oil,  and  kindred  commodities,  artists  who  have 
yielded  to  the  temptation  have  merely  vied  with  one 
another  in  proclaiming  the  relative  unimportance  of 
their  art — or  at  least  its  similarity  to  canned  food  and 
their  own  likeness  to  that  growing  class  of  universal 
providers  whose  chief  quality  is  that  they  provide 
everything  except  what  is  wanted.  I'm  not  idiot 
enough  to  suggest  that  a  special  honor  should  be 
invented  for  artists,  for  the  very  excellent  reason  that 
if  such  a  thing  existed  all  the  wrong  people  would 
get  it.  At  any  rate,  let  it  be  said  once  for  all  that 
Benson  honored  his  brother  knights;  they  did  not 
honor  him.  I  admit  the  honor  would  have  been  the 
other  way  about  if  they  had  been  forced  to  sit 
through  one  of  his  ordinary  tragic  performances, 
though  he  could  act  with  dignity  and  moderation  on 
rare  occasions — but  the  chief  point  to  remember  about 
Benson's  work  is  not  what  he  personally  did  but  what 
he  generally  aimed  at  doing. 

148 


FRANK   BENSON  149 

As  a  boy  at  school,  I  used  to  love  his  acting,  largely 
perhaps  because  I  couldn't  understand  a  word  he  ever 
said.     There   was    a   mystery   about    it    all   which 
wrapped  Shakespeare  up  in  a  chaotic  glamor  and 
served  as  a  splendid  antidote  to  the  tedious,  prosaic 
business  of  repetition  in  the  class-room.    No  quite  nat- 
ural acting  could  possibly  have  done  this.    I  owe  it  to 
Benson,  then,  that  Shakespeare  was  not  killed  for  me 
at  an  age  he  is  usually  killed  for  the  majority  of  boys. 
Benson  saved  Shakespeare  for  me  off  the  stage  by 
simply  murdering  him  for  me  on  the  stage.    Later, 
when  I  came  to  manhood,  and  after  seeing  such  splen- 
did things  as  Robertson's  Hamlet,  Tree's  Richard  II 
and  Waller's  Hotspur,  I  had  another  peep  at  Ben- 
son.   Age  cannot  wither  the  memory  of  that  lamenta- 
ble Macbeth,  that  execrable  Hamlet.    I  immediately 
understood  why  Benson  had  been  practically  bank- 
rupt on  several  occasions,  and  why  his  performances 
had  made  Shakespeare  a  household  word  in  the  prov- 
inces, and  why  Hamlet  thought  it  necessary  to  ieach 
actors  how  to  act — and  a  dozen  other  things.  .It  was 
really  quite  dreadful — an  infinite  monotony.     Ben- 
son, who  produced  all  our  best  Shakespearean  actors, 
himself  the  "horrible  example."    He  should  have 
said:  "  Do  you  wish  to  learn  how  to  act?    Well,  mark 
me  and  I  will  show  you  how  not  to  do  it.    Note  my 
manner  of  speech — and  go  and  do  thou  otherwise! " 
But  personal  triumphs  are  small  and  of  little  ac- 
count beside  the  higher  issues  of  art,  and  Benson  will 
be    remembered — deserves    to    be    remembered — in 
England  as  that  man  who  above  all  others  in  our 
theatrical  history  realized  a  mission.    He  was  the  only 
actor  who  ever  spread  Shakespeare  broadcast  in  these 


160     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

islands.  His  companies,  at  least  when  I  was  at  schooM 
gave  the  best  all-round  performances  one  could  ever 
hope  to  see;  infinitely  better  than  one  could  see  in 
first-class  West  End  productions,  in  which  by  the  way 
nearly  all  the  best  performers  were  old  Bensonians. 
He  taught  his  people  that  the  important  thing  was  to 
make  themselves  heard.  "  Seek  ye  first  a  clear  and 
rapid  elocution,"  he  said,  "  and  all  other  things  will 
be  added  unto  you."  Or,  in  other  words,  "  Don't 
mumble  and  don't  be  dull."  And  his  own  outrageous 
bawling  may  have  been  the  direct  outcome  of  this 
republican  lesson.  If  so,  I  for  one  was  willing  to 
suffer  the  pain  of  listening  to  it — though  I  sometimes 
wish  he  had  spouted  through  a  sponge. 

Of  course  Benson  made  the  usual  mistake  of  acting 
all  the  chief  parts  himself,  and  thus  in  a  sense  under- 
mining the  force  and  fineness  of  his  mission.  But  this 
was  simply  a  part  of  that  vanity  which  seems  in- 
separable from  the  individual  members  of  his  profes- 
sion. I  should  have  done  much  the  same  thing 
myself. 

Benson  felt  his  mission,  felt  it  so  sincerely  that  he 
was  always  dreaming  about  it.  It  wrapped  him  up 
in  a  sort  of  Quixotic  cloak.  It  pervaded  his  acting, 
making  him  misquote  nearly  eveiy  other  line  of  his 
parts.  It  found  expression  in  all  directions:  the 
Pageant  revival,  Morris  dancing,  medieval  street  pro- 
cessions, banner-waving,  folk-songs,  early  music,  ath- 
letic sports,  and  a  general  picturesqueness  which  he 
associated  with  the  rollicking  days  of  Eliza.  He  was 
blessed  with  entire  belief  in  his,religion  and  was  there- 
fore exceptionally  happy.  I  loved  him  for  that. 
There  was  about  him  a  winning  simplicity  and  child- 


FRANK    BENSON  151 

ish  enthusiasm  altogether  attractive.  Indeed,  the 
inner  man  was  faithfully  reflected  in  the  outer.  I 
never  met  anyone  who  had  such  a  charming,  naive 
address,  such  a  courteous,  engaging  manner.  It 
seemed  a  natural  part  of  himself,  not  acquired  but 
instinctive.  He  would,  I  think,  have  made  a  first-rate 
constitutional  monarch — was,  in  fact,  born  for  the 
part.  After  years  of  work,  which  included  not  a  few 
trials  and  tribulations,  he  remained  the  same  unspoilt, 
ingenuous  darling  of  nature. 

His  histrionic  defects  were,  as  I  have  said,  consid- 
erable, but  in  spite  of  these  he  must  go  down  to  his- 
tory as  Shakespeare's  most  devoted  stage-disciple — a 
man  whose  singularly  noble  ideal  enriched  his  native 
land  with  an  artistic  impetus  as  rare  as  it  was  beau- 
tiful. 


X 

ROBERT  ROSS 

A  LITTLE,  pleasant,  bald-headed  man,  with  quiet  ways, 
a  slightly  baffled  expression  and  a  subdued  air — that  is 
how  Robert  Ross  first  appeared  to  me.  Later  he 
charmed  me  by  his  unexpected,  rather  parenthetical, 
turns  of  witty  speech  and  sudden  gleams  of  humorous 
comprehension.  With  curious  insight  into  character 
he  could  make  a  man  live  again  in  a  few  well-chosen 
phrases,  and  hit  off  his  mannerisms  with  cameo-like 
effect. 

I  cannot  imagine  a  more  delightful,  entertaining 
companion  at  a  quiet  dinner  than  Robert  Ross. 
Sometime  in  1916  he  asked  me  to  dine  with  him  at 
Prince's,  and  I  spent  one  of  the  most  enjoyable  even- 
ings of  my  life.  It  was  dawn  before  I  left  his  cham- 
bers in  Half  Moon  Street,  where  we  had  spent  the 
midnight  hours  after  dinner,  and  I  reached  my  billet 
too  late  (or  too  early)  to  arouse  the  suspicions  of  the 
guard. 

To  look  at  him,  no  one  would  imagine  that  he  had 
been  one  of  the  leading  actors  in  the  succession  of 
tragedies  and  tragi-comedies  that  had  followed  the 
hounding  of  his  great  friend,  Oscar  Wilde,  from  pub- 
lic life.  He  had,  if  anyone  ever  had,  a  restful  person- 
ality. And  yet,  I  suppose,  no  one  was  ever  made  to 
suffer  as  he  was  for  a  lifelong  loyalty  and  an  undying 
affection.  That  loyalty,  that  affection,  was  its  own 

152 


ROBERT   ROSS  153 

reward.  He  gained  no  other;  but,  instead,  he  was 
subjected  to  an  unending  series  of  calumnious  attacks 
and  malicious  insults  that  have  no  parallel  in  the  an- 
nals of  envy  and  hatred. 

Many  things  he  told  me  that  night  I  cannot,  of 
course,  repeat,  but  several  other  things  may  be  of 
general  interest  and  can't  do  much  harm  by  repetition. 

Speaking  of  Oscar  Wilde  he  said: 

"  His  wife  was  quite  unsympathetic  towards  him. 
This  will  give  you  an  idea  of  her.  Oscar  was  always 
the  essence  of  charm  and  good  nature,  and  would 
never  do  anything  to  disappoint  her.  One  day,  when 
I  was  with  them  at  Tite  Street,  she  asked  him  if  he 
would  come  in  for  lunch  on  the  following  day,  as 
some  old  Dublin  friends  (a  clergyman  among  them) 
were  coming  to  see  her  and  very  much  wanted  to 
meet  him.  Oscar,  to  whom  this  sort  of  thing  was  the 
reverse  of  attractive,  said:  'All  right,  my  dear,  if 
Bobbie  can  come  as  well.'  Of  course  she  asked  me, 
though  I  knew  she  didn't  want  to,  and  it  was  then 
and  there  arranged.  We  found  his  wife's  friends  the 
typical  provincial  sort,  full  of  their  own  local  news 
and  nothing  much  else.  Oscar  talked  during  lunch 
as  I  never  heard  him  talk  before — divinely.  Had  the 
company  included  the  Queen  and  all  the  Royal  Fam- 
ily, he  couldn't  have  surpassed  himself.  Humor,  tale, 
epigram,  flowed  from  his  lips,  and  his  listeners  sat 
spellbound  under  the  influence.  Suddenly  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  his  most  entrancing  stories — his  audi- 
ence with  wide  eyes  and  parted  mouths,  their  food 
untasted — his  wife  broke  in:  *  Oh,  Oscar,  did  you  re- 
member to  call  for  Cyril's  boots? ' 

"  Oscar  could  never  be  got  to  speak  about  his  child- 


154.     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

hood;  in  fact  he  rarely,  if  ever,  spoke  of  his  own  life 
at  all.  But,  very  strangely,  just  after  he  came  out  of 
prison,  for  several  days  he  continually  reverted  to 
his  boyhood.  Reggie  Turner  and  I  were,  of  course, 
burning  to  hear  all  about  his  life  in  prison,  and  we 
were  perpetually  bringing  his  thoughts  back  from  the 
one  topic  to  the  other.  Neither  of  us  can  remember 
a  single  thing  of  importance  concerning  his  early  days 
that  he  then  told  us,  and  I  am  always  blaming  myself 
for  the  omission — though  perhaps  it  was  natural  un- 
der the  circumstances.  Two  very  slight  things  linger 
in  my  memory,  and  that  is  all.  The  first  was  that  he 
once  ran  away  from  home  or  school  and  hid  in  a  cave. 
The  second  was  that  he  and  his  brother  used  to  fish 
in  a  lake :  '  It  was  full,'  he  told  us,  '  of  large  melan- 
choly salmon,  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  lake  and 
paid  no  attention  to  our  bait.' ' 

I  had  often  thought  that  the  most  characteristic 
things  Wilde  ever  wrote  were  his  private  letters,  and 
I  asked  Ross  why  he  didn't  publish  a  good  selection. 
He  answered: 

'  The  question  of  the  Wilde  letters  has  often  been 
discussed,  but  for  the  moment  must  be  postponed  sine 
die.  Douglas,  who  proposed  at  one  time  to  publish 
those  belonging  to  himself,  was  injuncted  by  me  from 
doing  so,  because  the  copyright  of  them  belongs  to  the 
Wilde  estate,  which  I  administer  for  the  children. 
On  finding  that  he  could  not  make  money  out  of  them 
in  that  way,  he  sold  the  originals  to  Quaritch,  and  I 
believe  they  have  gone  to  America;  in  any  case,  I 
would  not,  of  course,  hold  any  communication  with 
him  on  the  subject.  Sherard,  I  know,  must  have  sold 
most  of  his,  as  they  have  been  on  the  market  at  vari- 


ROBERT    ROSS  155 

ous  prices  for  a  good  many  years.  At  one  time  I 
actually  contemplated  carrying  out  your  suggestion, 
but  I  found,  much  to  my  disappointment  and  dismay, 
that  nearly  all  those  who  had  corresponded  with  the 
author  prior  to  1895  had  destroyed  all  his  letters,  the 
Burne-Jones's  and  the  Acton's  among  others.  They 
even  destroyed  many  of  his  manuscripts  which  he  had 
given  them.  After  the  release  in  '97  he  wrote  inter- 
mittently, but  too  often  about  private  matters  which 
could  not  be  published;  and  it  is  true  to  say  that  he 
was  never,  except  when  a  very  young  man,  a  constant 
correspondent." 

*  What  do  you  think  of  Frank  Harris's  biography 
of  Wilde?  "  I  asked  him.  "  Personally  I  don't  think 
there's  anything  in  biographical  literature  to  touch  it 
as  a  breathing  pulsating  creation." 

"  I  wrote  to  Harris,"  he  replied,  "  directly  I  re- 
ceived the  book,  saying  that  it  was  '  a  portrait  by 
Franz  Hals,  not  Frank  Harris.'  The  portrait  is  a 
terribly  faithful  one — at  all  events  of  Wilde  in  certain 
aspects.  I  wish  it  could  have  been  more  compre- 
hensive; but  the  materials  are  not  accessible,  because 
the  indispensable  cooperation  of  those  who  knew 
Wilde  long  before  Harris  or  I  did  would  not  be  avail- 
able. I  agree  with  you  that  as  a  biographical  sketch 
it  is  unique.  Indeed  the  only  criticism  I  would  make 
is  that  in  presenting  as  he  does  so  admirably  the  spirit 
and  matter  of  Wilde's  talk,  he  sometimes  uses  a  vo- 
cabulary and  phraseology  that  Wilde  would  never 
have  used.  Harris  has  too  much  personality  to  be  a 
quite  faithful  chronicler  in  this  respect.  But  it  is  a 
minor  point,  and  the  truth  and  power  of  the  portrait 
as  a  whole  make  the  book,  to  me,  rather  painful. 


156     MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

Some  of  the  incidents  Harris  describes  (the  '  gamin  ' 
scene  in  Paris,  for  example)  are  so  vividly  character- 
istic that  I  could  swear  they  happened  exactly  as  nar- 
rated, even  though  I  wasn't  present  at  the  precise 
episodes  given.  If  you  are  writing  to  him,  do  please 
convey  my  best  thanks  and  most  sincere  admiration 
of  his  work." 

Somehow  I  had  got  the  impression  that  Ross  was 
a  very  keen  Catholic,  and  was  amazed  when  he  told 
me  that  he  was  a  confirmed  Atheist.  "  But  weren't 
you  responsible  for  Wilde's  death-bed  conversion?  " 
I  asked.  "  Oh,  I  was  a  Catholic  in  those  days  right 
enough,"  he  replied,  "  though  I  most  certainly  was 
not  responsible  for  Wilde's  conversion — in  fact,  I 
wasn't  a  bit  keen  on  it,  as  it  wouldn't  have  suited  his 
constitution  and  no  priest  could  possibly  have  listened 
to  his  confessions  in  a  becoming  frame  of  mind.  No, 
he  made  me  promise  to  bring  a  priest  when  he  was 
no  longer  in  a  fit  condition  to  shock  one,  which  I  did. 
The  truth  is  I  left  the  Roman  Church  when  Douglas 
entered  it.  I  felt  it  wasn't  big  enough  to  hold  both 
of  us." 

I  was  very  lucky  that  night.  In  the  course  of  con- 
versation, and  split  up  between  innumerable  little  bits 
of  jollification  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  sub- 
ject, I  managed  to  get  Ross's  final  words  on  the  labor 
that  had  chiefly  occupied  his  curiously  unselfish  exist- 
ence; and  his  valedictory  remarks,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
one  interest  of  his  lifetime  that  will  as  surely  gain 
him  posterity's  gratitude  as  it  shortened  his  own  lease 
of  years. 

I  will  put  it  all  down  here,  not,  as  I  have  said,  ex- 
actly as  I  first  received  it  from  him,  but  without  the 


ROBERT    ROSS  157 

hundred  and  one  asides  and  comments  which  made  it 
flow  easily  in  ordinary  conversational  channels  at  the 
lime.  He  afterwards  read  and  approved  the  result 
of  my  Boswellian  ardor,  precisely  in  the  form  in  which 
I  now  give  it  to  the  reader. 

"  I  do  not  agree  with  the  views  of  Harris,  Shaw  or 
Moore,  on  Wilde  or  his  writings.  The  interest  of 
Wilde  appeals  quite  differently  to  different  people,  as 
I  have  tried  to  explain  in  the  Preface  to  the  14th  edi- 
tion of  '  De  Profundis.'  The  point  of  Harris's  book 
is  that  it  is  his  view.  As  Wilde  said,  *  Attitude  in  Art 
is  everything,'  and  '  The  highest  as  the  lowest  form  of 
criticism  is  a  mode  of  autobiography.'  All  I  have  to 
say  myself  on  the  subject  is  included  in  the  various 
Prefaces  I  have  written  to  his  works,  purposely  and 
deliberately  concealed  in  as  few  words  as  possible. 

"  Alfred  Douglas  indeed  objected  to  what  he  called 
my  '  detached  and  patronizing  attitude '  about 
Wilde's  writings.  But  I  will  confess  to  a  certain  craft 
in  exercising  a  reticence  which  I  do  not  propose  to 
break.  In  the  first  place,  my  views  of  Wilde  as  a 
writer  would  not  be  regarded  as  of  any  importance; 
and  my  views  of  Wilde  as  a  man  would  be  regarded 
as  too  biased.  The  latter  objection  would  hold  with 
regard  to  his  writings,  even  if  I  were  accepted  as 
literary  critic  of  any  kind.  Douglas  and  Crosland 
sought  vainly  to  discover  some  word  of  approval  of 
Wilde  or  his  life  among  my  sparse  contributions  to 
literature  on  the  subject.  That  they  failed  to  do  so 
was  one  of  the  most  gratifying  tributes  I  have  ever 
received;  but  apart  from  that,  I  always  calculated 
that  if  I  said  nothing  the  reviewers  of  the  new  edi- 
tions would  not  have  anything  to  contradict,  and 


158     MODERN   MEN   AND    MUMMERS 

would  be  compelled  to  discuss  for  the  first  time 
Wilde's  books  on  their  own  merits.  In  his  lifetime 
the  reviewers  merely  reviewed  his  life  and  opinions. 
My  plan,  I  am  pleased  to  say,  has  succeeded. 

"  I  must  admit  that  my  attitude  is  a  little  like  that 
of  Watts  Dunton  towards  Rossetti.  Indeed,  in 
darker  moments  I  feel  another  Watts  Dunton,  with- 
out complementary  Swinburne  to  occupy  my  old  age. 
But  let  me  say  this  to  you,  under  the  seal  of  publicity, 
with  regard  to  the  viewpoints  of  Shaw  and  Moore,  I 
would  never  accept  the  criticism  of  another  Irishman 
on  any  Irish  writer,  living  or  dead.  The  Irish  are 
the  best  critics  in  the  world  on  Greek,  Latin,  German 
or  English  authors.  They  dislike  each  other  too  much 
to  be  good  critics  of  themselves. 

;<  Wilde  was  quite  incapable  of  judging  Shaw, 
whose  facility  and  originality  he  undoubtedly  envied 
and  admired;  or  Moore,  whose  industry  and  percep- 
tion dazzled  him  more  than  he  would  admit;  just  as 
Moore  and  Shaw,  who,  of  course,  disliked  Wilde,  are 
possibly  irritated  with  the  interest  which  Wilde's 
work  excites  among  their  contemporaries,  particu- 
larly as  they  honestly  do  not  admire  the  work. 

"  Now  about  Douglas's  book  entitled  '  The  myth 
of  Oscar  Wilde.'  The  only  myth  was  that  invented 
by  Douglas  himself  and  subsequently  maintained  by 
his  family.  I  certainly  never  contradicted  the  myth 
and  always  allowed  ample  room  for  credence  in  the 
Preface  to  *  De  Profundis  '  already  mentioned ;  but 
Douglas  became  so  enthusiastic  that  I  suppose  he 
began  to  believe  the  myth  himself.  Its  entire  un- 
truth was  settled  in  the  Ransome  case,  not  merely  by 
the  verdict  of  the  Jury  in  Ransome' s  favor,  but  by 


ROBERT    ROSS  169 

Douglas's  own  letters,  one  of  which  Harris  quotes 
with  such  excellent  effect,  and  by  his  admissions  in 
the  witness-box. 

"When  Douglas  inherited  £25,000  from  Lord 
Queensberry  in  the  early  part  of  1900,  Wilde  still 
being  alive,  I  asked  him  to  pay  off  Wilde's  debts  and 
thereby  acquire  copyrights,  which  I  offered  to  admin- 
istrate on  his  behalf  until  he  was  repaid.  Instead  he 
bought  a  stud  at  Chantilly  and  got  through  the  money 
in  less  than  six  months.  What  happened  afterwards 
Harris  has  recorded  in  his  own  vivid  and  inimitable 
way  with  absolute  truth. 

"  But  Douglas  never  forgave  either  himself  or  me 
for  having  rejected  such  a  very  good  business  pro- 
posal. As  years  went  on  he  became  frankly  jealous 
at  the  prestige  which  I  obtained  for  having  rescued 
Wilde's  estate  from  bankruptcy,  and  he  was  envious 
at  the  not  inconsiderable  proceeds  which,  if  he  had  ac- 
cepted my  offer,  would  have  been  his.  That  was  the 
real  basis  of  our  final  quarrel.  .  .  .  With  the  active 
assistance  of  his  cousin,  George  Wyndham,  he  then 
began  that  series  of  actions,  hoping  not  merely  to  turn 
the  tables  on  me,  but  to  repatch  his  threadbare  reputa- 
tion for  loyalty. 

"Why  George  Wyndham  should  have  played  a 
prominent  part  in  the  business  is  not,  as  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  says,  beyond  all  conjecture;  but  that  is  an- 
other story  which  will  have  to  be  written  some  day. 

"  The  function  which  I  set  myself  in  1900  was  to 
try  and  get  the  books  and  plays  a  fair  hearing  and  a 
fair  reading,  and  to  obtain  some  benefit  from  their 
sale  for  Wilde's  children.  My  friends,  and  particu- 
larly Frank  Harris,  have  been  more  than  generous  in 


160     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

recognizing  the  success  of  my  efforts,  but  I  really 
think  my  function  has  now  come  to  an  end,  and  if  I 
feel  too  complacent  it  is  Harris  and  others  who  have 
made  me  so  by  their  exaggerated  tributes  to  me. 

;<  To  paroday  one  of  Wilde's  jests  with  which  you 
are  doubtless  familiar,  there  are  two  ways  of  disliking 
Wilde  and  his  works.  One  way  is  to  dislike  them. 
The  other  is  to  say  that  Robert  Ross  was  too  kind  to 
his  children." 


XI 

PLAYWRIGHT  PRODUCERS 

PLAY-PKODUCEKS  are  a  race  apart.  Few  other  classes 
of  the  community  have  the  opportunity  of  being  so 
popular  or  so  unpopular,  so  loved  or  so  hated.  They 
are  absolute  despots;  but  the  popular  ones  among 
them  have  established  benevolent  autocracies,  the  un- 
popular ones  malevolent  oligarchies.  Unfortunately 
this  state  of  affairs  can  never  be  remedied  until  actors 
and  actresses  are  born  again,  and  become  a  quite  dif- 
ferent set  of  individuals  from  what  they  are  at  present. 
An  ochlocracy  on  the  stage  is  unthinkable  as  long  as 
the  artists  consider  their  parts  more  important  than 
the  plays  they  are  acting  in. 

Autocratic  play-producers  are  therefore  a  neces- 
sary evil — the  more  autocratic  the  better  until  our 
artists  become  socialized. 

Perhaps  the  best  producers  in  the  world  are  the 
authors  of  the  plays  produced.  It  is  consequently  up 
to  every  professional  producer,  if  he  wants  to  keep  his 
job,  to  prevent  the  author  from  opening  his  mouth 
at  rehearsals.  Once  let  it  be  realized  that  the  author 
is  the  only  person  who  can,  and  should,  produce  his 
own  play,  and  the  days  of  the  professional  producer 
will  be  numbered.  Of  course  the  author,  unless  he  has 
mastered  all  the  technicalities  of  stage  production, 
must  have  a  scenery  and  lighting  expert  at  command ; 

161 


162     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

but  that  will  simply  mean  the  substitution  of  profes- 
sional producers  by  professional  technicians. 

As  things  go  at  present,  very  few  authors  are  al- 
lowed to  tamper  with  their  own  works.  There  are, 
as  far  as  I  know,  only  three  playwrights  of  recent 
years  who  have  managed  to  get  matters  entirely  into 
their  own  hands:  Bernard  Shaw,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero 
and  Granville  Barker.  And  of  these  only  Granville 
Barker  has  made  a  profession  of  the  business — that 
is  to  say,  he  has  produced  other  people's  plays  as  well 
as  his  own.  The  rest  of  our  leading  dramatists — John 
Galsworthy  and  Sir  James  Barrie  for  example — con- 
tent themselves  with  a  few  grandmotherly  hints  here 
and  there  to  producers  and  actors  alike. 

I  don't  suppose,  if  you  searched  theatrical  history 
from  the  time  of  Shakespeare  to  the  present,  you 
would  come  across  two  men  who  differed  more  in  their 
methods  of  producing  plays  than  Shaw  and  Pinero. 
When  I  say  that  they  differ  in  method,  I  ought  to 
qualify  the  statement  by  adding  that  their  plays  re- 
quire a  different  kind  of  acting.  They  both  write 
plays  with  a  purpose,  but  the  purpose  of  Shaw's  plays 
is  to  make  people  think,  while  the  purpose  of  Pinero's 
plays  is  to  make  people  pay.  The  former  asks  his 
actors  to  realize  what  they  are  saying;  the  later  asks 
his  actors  to  make  the  audience  realize  that  something 
is  being  said.  Now  the  obvious  result  in  the  case  of 
Shaw  is  that  he  mustn't  lose  his  temper;  he  often  has 
to  explain  what  he  is  driving  at,  and  one  can't  shout 
explanations.  But  the  equally  obvious  result  in  the 
case  of  Pinero  is  that  the  more  he  shouts  the  better 
he  gets  his  effects:  that  is  to  say,  the  actor  sometimes 


shouts  back  at  him,  which  is  precisely  what  he  wants 
—or  rather  what  he  is  positive  his  audience  wants. 

I  remember  once  when  Pinero  lost  his  temper  (and, 
which  was  more  to  the  purpose,  found  his  voice)  he 
bellowed  at  someone :  "  I  can't  hear  a  damned  sylla- 
ble! For  God's  sake  speak  up!"  The  actor,  en- 
raged, literally  howled  his  next  line,  which  was  some- 
thing like:  "Don't  talk  so  loudly;  they'll  hear  what 
we  say."  There  was  a  feeling  of  restraint  about  the 
theater  for  the  rest  of  that  day. 

"  Too  confidential,"  Pinero  once  said  to  me;  "  don't 
forget  the  back  row  of  the  gallery."  Another  time, 
after  the  curtain  had  fallen  on  one  of  the  acts,  he 
came  on  to  the  stage,  walked  about  darkly  in  a  Na- 
poleonic manner  for  a  while,  and  then  said :  :"  I'm 
glad  you  are  all  enjoying  the  play;  I've  heard  it's  an 
excellent  one,  and  I'm  sure  it's  too  good  to  keep  alto- 
gether to  yourselves.  Don't  be  so  selfish.  Let  me 
have  some  of  it."  And  he  marched  back  to  the  stalls, 
the  curtain  went  up,  and  the  act  was  played  over 
again. 

Pinero  is  mad  on  details :  positions  to  a  square  inch, 
movements,  inflections  of  voice,  above  all  syllabic  per- 
fection in  speaking  the  text.  He  treats  his  perform- 
ers like  a  lot  of  babies.  (He  used  to  take  Sir  George 
Alexander  through  his  part  like  a  child.)  He  has  a 
deep-rooted  belief  that  actors  can't  think  for  them- 
selves. He  has  been  one  himself,  so  he  ought  to  know ! 
I  think  someone  must  have  told  him  that  he  resembles 
Napoleon,  or  his  aping  of  the  Emperor  may  be  un- 
conscious. At  any  rate,  he  walks,  head  forward,  in 
short,  quick  steps,  one  hand  behind  his  back,  and 


164     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

glowers  at  one  under  bushy  and  autocratically-puck- 
ered eyebrows.  He  is  very  short,  inclined  to  stout- 
ness, and  has  a  deep  voice  that  would  be  useful  during 
a  cannonade.  He  smoke  cigarettes  interminably— 
never  has  one  out  of  his  mouth  for  five  consecutive 
minutes — and  for  some  reason  best  known  to  himself, 
he  never  takes  his  gloves  off. 

The  Pineronian  method  has,  nevertheless,  for  all 
its  unbending  theory  of  divine  right  of  authors,  one 
distinct  advantage  over  the  Shavian.  Pinero's  mi- 
nute attention  to  every  detail,  though  often  ridicu- 
lous, is  extended  to  the  "  small  part "  people ;  and 
there  is  great  merit  in  this.  Shaw  never  bothers  him- 
self much  over  the  small  parts.  I  suppose  he  im- 
agines anybody  can  fill  them  adequately  enough,  but 
he  is  mistaken.  I  have  acted  both  large  and  small 
parts,  and  I  hereby  put  on  record  for  the  guidance 
of  future  producers  that  the  small  part  is  much  the 
more  difficult  of  the  two.  You  may  fail  with  a  large 
part  in  fifty  places,  but  there  are  fifty  more  places 
where  you  can  make  a  dazzling  success.  A  large  part 
covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  That  is  what  critics  mean 
(though  they  don't  know  they  mean  it)  when  they  say 
that  no  actor  ever  completely  fails  as  Hamlet.  If  a 
man  fails  in  every  scene  as  Hamlet,  the  sooner  he 
adopts  pig-sticking  as  a  trade  the  better!  The  thing 
is  morally  and  physically  impossible  for  anyone  with 
half  an  ounce  of  brains  or  imagination.  But  a  small 
part  is  quite  another  matter.  You've  got  to  get 
"  right  there  "  in  a  dozen  lines  or  so,  and  the  united 
brains  of  actor,  author  and  producer  should  be  con- 
centrated on  the  single  question  of  How  to  do  it. 

Now,  if  you  are  playing  a  small  part,  Shaw  will 


PLAYWRIGHT   PRODUCERS       165 

just  correct  you  and  then  leave  you  to  your  fate. 
He  presupposes  exceptional  intelligence  at  <£3  a  week, 
and  if  you  don't  show  it  he  probably  says  to  himself: 
"  God  help  the  blithering  idiot— I  shan't!  "  All  the 
same,  I  would  rather  suggest  a  "  reading  "  of  some- 
thing or  other  to  Pinero  than  to  Shaw.  I  would  feel 
that  Shaw  has  a  contempt  for  mere  technicalities.  He 
wants  the  brain  sound  and  doesn't  mind  if  the  legs 
wobble! 

It  is  strange  that  Pinero,  the  theatrical,  should  sit 
in  the  front  row  of  the  stalls,  and  that  Shaw,  the  con- 
fidential, should  sit  in  the  front  row  of  the  dress  circle, 
at  rehearsal.  In  view  of  what  I  have  said,  one  would 
imagine  Pinero  behind  the  gallery,  if  not  in  the  street 
outside,  and  Shaw  in  the  wings,  if  not  walking  about 
among  his  characters  on  the  stage.  I  can  only  sup- 
pose the  former  stuffs  his  ears  with  cotton  wool  and 
the  latter  uses  an  ear-trumpet. 

When  the  curtain  has  fallen  on  an  act  at  rehearsal, 
Shaw  comes  round  to  the  stage  with  a  volume  of  notes 
made  during  the  performance.  He  then  takes  each 
actor,  quite  personally  and  intimately,  through  the 
notes  that  concern  him.  Pinero,  on  the  contrary, 
remembers  all  the  faults  in  an  act  when  it  is  finished 
by  going  through  it  again,  with  himself  of  course 
strolling  about  on  the  stage — Tableau:  Napoleon  at 
St.  Helena.  He  then  pulls  you  up  at  particular 
places,  after  first  giving  you  a  hint  that  you  were,  all 
through,  too  quiet,  and  says:  "  Ah,  yes;  this  is  where 
I  want  you  to  turn  slightly  to  the  left,  walk  slowly  to 
a  position  exactly  behind  the  center  of  the  sofa,  three 
feet  from  it,  put  one  hand  in  your  right  coat  pocket, 
scratch  the  lower  part  of  your  chin  with  the  other 


166     MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

hand,  and  say  '  Oh! '  three  times  .  .  ."or  something 
to  that  effect. 

Only  once,  I  believe,  has  Shaw  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  London  production  of  one  of  his  plays — until 
the  eleventh  hour.  Barker  produced  "  Androcles  and 
the  Lion  "  while  Shaw  was  away  on  a  holiday,  and 
things  went  fairly  smoothly  for  several  weeks — until, 
in  fact,  we  started  dress  rehearsals.  Then  the  author 
turned  up  and  proceeded  to  alter  the  greater  part  of 
Barker's  "  business,"  keeping  us  all  up  till  about  3 
a.m.  Such  small  regard  for  others  struck  me  as  curi- 
ous in  Shaw,  since  he  is  in  so  many  respects  the  ideal 
producer:  his  manner  is  ingratiating,  he  never  loses 
his  temper,  he  is  very  helpful,  very  kind,  very  unself- 
ish. He  usually  gets  his  way  without  the  slightest 
friction,  though  I  remember  seeing  Barker  on  the 
occasion  just  mentioned  sitting  with  a  face  of 
whimsical  dejection  as  he  watched  G.  B.  S.,  who, 
with  angelic  sweetness,  was  calmly  undoing  the  work 
of  weeks.  Another  thing  greatly  in  Shaw's  favor: 
he  never  makes  one  nervous,  and  to  an  actor  this 
quality  alone  would  outweigh  (if  he  had  them)  a 
thousand  crimes  of  colossal  magnitude. 

To  each  his  due.  Pinero  wouldn't  dream  of  keep- 
ing his  company  busy  till  the  small  hours,  and  the 
question  imposes  itself:  Is  it  better  to  be  treated  like 
a  machine,  with  clock-work  punctuality  to  match 
(Pinero- Alexander),  or  to  be  treated  like  a  human 
being,  with  irregular  hours  as  payment  for  your  pli- 
ability ( Shaw-Barker)  ? 

I  would  like  to  tell  you  of  the  gems  of  scintillating 
wit  that  one  would  naturally  suppose  drop  by  the 
score  from  the  mouth  of  Shaw  at  each  and  every 


PLAYWRIGHT    PRODUCERS       167 

rehearsal.  But  in  this  respect  (I  must  apologize  for 
destroying  the  illusion)  he  very  much  resembles  the 
average  man.  In  short,  he  conducts  his  business  in 
a  business-like  manner. 

There  is  really  nothing  more  to  be  said  about  Shaw 
and  Pinero  at  rehearsal.  They  would  both  doubtless 
improve  over  a  bottle  of  champagne.  Rehearsing  is 
too  sorry  a  business  to  induce  souls  to  blossom  forth 
like  flowers  to  the  view,  and  an  author  is  invariably 
at  his  worst  when  he  is  in  a  state  of  excitement  over 

his  own  work. 

*  #  #  #  # 

Granville  Barker  is  the  greatest  producer  of  his 
time  in  England.  Without  people  being  altogether 
aware  of  it,  he  has  revolutionized  stage  production  in 
this  country.  I  don't  know  enough  about  it  to  ex- 
plain how  or  why.  I  simply  know  that  he  has.  His 
work  is  always  distinguished  for  its  detail.  There 
are  no  rough  edges  in  his  productions,  and  his  com- 
panies are  always  the  best  for  what  is  known  as 
"  team  work  "  in  London.  Even  his  "  stars  "  have 
taken  their  proper  place  in  the  planetary  system; 
they  haven't  been  allowed  to  dazzle  the  lesser  con- 
stellations out  of  existence. 

His  method  of  producing  is,  on  the  whole,  Shavian. 
He  takes  things  quietly  and  talks  matters  over  inti- 
mately. But  he  has  some  curiously  anti-Shavian 
lapses  from  grace.  For  one  thing,  he  gets  annoyed — 
and  shows  it.  Shows  it  in  a  very  terrifying  manner. 
His  curses  are  neither  loud  nor  deep:  they  are  at- 
mospheric. It  is  what  he  doesn't  say  that  paralyzes 
one.  He  looks;  and  having  looked,  he  turns  his  back 
to  the  stage — and  you  can  still  see  him  looking 


168     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

through  the  back  of  his  head.  You  feel  that  he  is 
saying  quite  a  lot  of  things  to  himself,  saying  them 
thoughtfully  and  wither ingly — annihilating  things. 
You  wish  he  would  turn  round  and  say  them  aloud. 
You  wish  he  would  assault  you  with  whatever  con- 
sequences to  yourself.  You  wish  he  would  do  any- 
thing rather  than  imitate  a  potential  earthquake. 
Sometimes  he  will  execute  a  little  dance,  a  quiet,  soli- 
tary waltz  with  ghastly  possibilities.  That  is  when 
he  thinks  you  are  quite  unimaginably  shocking  in  your 
efforts  to  get  what  he  wants.  It  would  be  a  grave 
mistake  to  speak  to  him  at  those  moments.  The  best 
thing  to  do  is  to  hide  yourself  from  him  completely 
until  he  calls  you  back.  By  that  time  he  will  have 
recovered,  and  will  be  quite  charming.  Perhaps  he 
will  take  you  by  the  arm  and  call  you  his  "  dear 
friend."  Later,  you  will  ask  someone  what  hap- 
pened after  you  had  gone  away.  You  will  be  told 
that  nothing  happened — nothing  whatever!  That  is 
the  appalling  thing  about  Barker.  Nothing  happens. 
But  all  sorts  of  things  are  going  to  happen.  He  is  the 
supreme  artist  of  Suggestion. 

Like  all  exceptional  men,  he  has  his  fads.  One  of 
them  is  that  he  expects  his  artists  to  suggest  things 
in  their  parts  as  well  as  he  can  suggest  other — more 
terrible — things  at  rehearsal.  To  give  an  example. 
He  was  rehearsing  me  for  the  part  of  Valentine  in  a 
revival  of  "Twelfth  Night"  that  didn't  mature. 
Valentine  has  a  speech  in  which  he  gives  a  message 
from  Olivia  to  Orsino.  I,  very  naturally,  rendered 
the  speech  exactly  as  given  me  by  (presumably) 
Maria.  The  actual  words  are :  "  But  from  her  hand- 
maid do  return  this  answer."  But  that  wasn't  good 


PLAYWRIGHT   PRODUCERS       169 

enough  for  Barker.  Oh,  no !  He  explained  to  me  at 
great  length,  and  (I  regret  to  say  it)  quite  uncon- 
vincingly,  that  part  of  the  speech  was  Maria's  own, 
that  Malvolio  had  probably  touched  it  up  in  places, 
and  that  Sir  Toby  Belch  had  unquestionably  put  a 
phrase  in  here  and  there.  He  didn't  tell  me  how  all 
this  was  to  be  suggested,  short  of  imitating  the  voice 
and  manner  of  the  various  authors,  so  I  failed  to  give 
it  Barker- justice.  He  ruffled  his  hair,  executed  a  pas 
de  seulj  and  eventually  (not,  I  hope,  on  account  of 
me)  substituted  another  play. 

After  a  play  is  launched  on  the  public,  Barker  will 
sometimes  take  it  into  his  head  to  watch  it,  unseen, 
from  some  obscure  corner  of  the  theater;  and  then 
amuse  himself  by  sending  little  notes  to  members  of 
the  cast  containing  such  cryptic  sentences  as :  "  You 
are  acting.  Why?  "  or  "  You  are  not  acting.  Why 
not?  "  or  "  How  serious  you  are  getting! "  or  "  Re- 
member this  is  a  comedy." 

Granville  Barker  was  the  directing  artistic  spirit 
behind  the  most  famous  epoch  in  theatrical  manage- 
ment since  the  days  of  the  Globe  on  Bankside.  His 
name  will  be  wedded  to  Shaw's  in  the  history  of  the 
English  theater.  Without  him,  it  is  possible  that 
Shaw  would  never  have  obtained  his  English  audi- 
ence. The  Vedrenne-Barker  tenancy  of  the  Court 
Theatre  is  the  most  shining  event  in  the  story  of  our 
drama  since  the  time  of  Shakespeare. 

That  is  fine  enough  achievement  for  a  man  without 
the  additional  luster  of  personal  dramatic  triumphs. 
But  his  own  plays  were,  and  to  some  extent  still  are, 
notable.  He  suffered  of  course,  like  the  rest  of  his 
compeers,  from  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Shaw — 


170     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

the  spiritual  father  of  all  our  '  repertory  '  dramatists, 
if  one  may  call  them  so.  All  the  same,  he  brought  a 
kind  of  ironic  seriousness  to  his  work  which  struck 
a  sufficiently  individual  note  to  give  him  a  niche  to 
himself.  I  must  confess  I  can't  read  his  plays  with 
much  enjoyment,  but  I  was  delighted  with  "  The 
Voysey  Inheritance  "  when  I  saw  it,  and  "  Waste  " 
was  quite  a  good  political  pamphlet. 

Some  day  the  chronicle  of  our  drama  in  the  first 
decade  of  this  century  will  be  written.  It  had  its 
exceptional  features,  quite  apart  from  the  plays  of 
Shaw,  and  Barker  will  be  found  to  take  his  rightful 
place  in  that  chronicle  as  a  very  eminent  Edwardian. 


POST-IMPRESSIONS 


H.  G.  WELLS 

A  MAN  who  writes  a  book  about  present-day  person- 
alities and  leaves  out  H.  G.  Wells  does  an  injustice 
to  posterity.  A  hundred  years  hence  people  will 
want  to  know  why  we  all  made  such  a  fuss  about  him. 
It  is  up  to  us  to  satisfy  their  curiosity.  It  can  be 
done  in  a  phrase.  H.  G.  Wells  is  the  literary 
Weather-Cock  of  the  age.  When  the  war-clouds 
banked  up  on  the  south-eastern  horizon  in  1914,  he 
spotted  them  from  afar,  and — click! — round  he  went 
with  the  popular  gale.  Long  before  the  war  the 
Woman  Suffrage  movement,  when  it  was  too 
strong  for  a  modern  thinker  to  resist,  found  in  him 
a  doughty  champion.  There  never  was  a  more  heroic 
fighter — on  the  winning  side.  The  moment  an  enemy 
turns  tail  "the  world's  greatest  writer"  (as  the  ad- 
vertisements call  him)  will  jump  and  shout  and  shake 
his  fist  and  put  out  his  tongue — until  it's  time  to  spin 
round  and  exhibit  his  gifts  in  another  direction. 

His  public  behavior  leads  one  to  believe  that  in 
extreme  youth  he  was  the  spoilt  child  of  the  family. 
I  feel  certain  that  as  a  youngster  he  was  perpetually 
being  stuffed  with  sweets  and  similar  delicacies  by 
fond  and  admiring  relations — a  sort  of  fat  boy.  As 
a  writer,  too,  he  has  been  successful  from  the  start, 
spoilt  by  good  fortune,  and  he  has  gone  on  from  tri- 
umph to  triumph.  No  poor,  neglected,  struggling 
author  for  him! 

When  someone  happens  to  disagree  with  him  over 

173 


174     MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

one  of  his  touchy  subjects,  he  works  himself  up  into 
a  state  of  ungovernable  fury  and  attacks  his  critic 
with  vitriolic  violence.  His  critic  naturally  thinks 
that  Wells  will  never  speak  to  him  again:  indeed  he 
is  not  at  all  certain  that  he  wants  to  speak  to  Wells 
again.  But  he  reckons  without  his  antagonist.  At 
the  first  encounter  after  one  of  these  utterly  unwar- 
rantable attacks,  Wells  will  meet  him  with  extended 
arms  and  chat  away  with  extraordinary  warmth  as 
though  nothing  of  the  smallest  consequence  had  oc- 
curred to  change  their  quite  brotherly  affection  for 
one  another.  After  which  the  critic  feels  rather  like 
the  Prodigal  Son. 

Asked  to  explain  one  of  these  devastating  on- 
slaughts, our  versatile  novelist  will  no  doubt  apologize 
profusely,  tell  his  faltering  critic  not  to  take  him  too 
seriously  as  he  really  couldn't  help  it,  he  was  made 
like  that,  and  so  on. 

Some  people  get  annoyed  at  this  kind  of  thing;  but 
they  needn't  lose  their  sleep  over  it.  All  they  have 
to  do  is  to  picture  the  fat  boy  being  gorged  with 
plums! 


EDMUND  GOSSE 

MR.  GOSSE — if  he  is  still  writing  reviews  when  my 
book  appears,  and  if  he  deigns  to  review  mine — will 
deny  me.  He  will  say:  "  I  know  not  the  man."  And 
he  will  be  quite  right.  Although  I  have  sat  in  his 
company  twenty  times,  and  once  actually  sat  on  his 
coat-tails,  he  has  probably  never  seriously  considered 
my  existence.  We  have  even  been  together,  he  and 
I,  at  10  Downing  Street,  but  he  probably  thought  I 
was  there  to  help  him  on  with  his  coat,  and  no  doubt 
regarded  me  through  his  spectacles  with  mild  amaze- 
ment when  I  showed  no  inclination  to  do  so. 

After  suffering  my  presence,  cheek  by  jowl  so  to 
speak,  on  fourteen  committees,  it  is  recorded  that  he 
referred  to  me  in  the  ensuing  phrase,  addressed  rather 
despairingly  to  a  fellow  committee-man:  "Who  is 
this  young  person?  "  His  query  was  prompted  by  a 
remark  I  had  just  made,  in  a  louder  tone  than  usual, 
on  the  stupidity  of  most  literary  critics. 

The  answer  of  his  fellow  committee-man  appar- 
ently didn't  take  root,  and  he  continued  to  gaze  at 
me,  when  there  was  nothing  else  left  to  gaze  at,  with 
now  and  then  a  suspicion  of  fright  in  his  eyes — as  of 
one  who  is  afraid  a  tip  may  be  required  of  him  when 
he  has  run  out  of  small  change. 

Like  so  many  other  "  modern "  writers  of  his 
period,  he  refuses  to  believe  that  the  world  has  ad- 
vanced since  the  death  of  Ibsen.  His  quiet  little 
jokes,  much  appreciated  by  Peers  of  the  Realm,  and 

175 


176     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

his  felicitous  little  apothegms,  very  popular  at  gen- 
teel tea-parties,  have  gained  him  the  ear  of  the  Elect. 
His  manners  are  just  what  they  should  be;  he  is 
nothing  if  not  respectable;  and  no  one,  except  an 
anarchist,  could  possibly  take  the  smallest  exception 
to  him. 


ARTHUR  BOURCHIER 

THEEE  is  a  most  refreshing  breeziness  about  the  per- 
sonality of  Arthur  Bourchier.  He  brings  the  at- 
mosphere of  our  drama's  good  old  palmy  days  back 
on  to  the  stage.  I  don't  know  what  those  good  old 
palmy  days  precisely  were;  but  I  am  positive  Arthur 
Bourchier  is  a  relic  of  them.  Someone  talks  of  the 
Higher  Drama.  "  Higher  Rubbish! "  says  our 
Arthur — and  the  Walls  of  Jericho  promptly  collapse. 
He  produces  plays  that  conform  to  the  standard  of 
palmy  drama.  They  usually  fail  to  attract  a  palmy 
public,  but  nothing  will  induce  him  to  give  in.  He 
continues  to  palm  them  off  as  novelties  upon  play- 
goers who  are  quite  willing  to  stand  him,  but  simply 
won't  stomach  his  mid-Victorian  tastes. 

He  will  clinch  any  argument  by  dragging  in  Shake- 
speare. Not  that  he  really  cares  for  Shakespeare,  or 
understands  him,  but  he  is  certain  that  Shakespeare 
(probably  because  he  wrote  spanking  big  Bour- 
chierian  parts)  was  the  palmiest  of  all  our  play- 
wrights. The  Arthur  Bourchiers  of  two  hundred 
years  hence  will  be  bludgeoning  their  antagonists  with 
the  name  of  Shaw,  just  as  those  of  to-day  knock  down 
theirs  with  the  name  of  Shakespeare.  They  will  do 
it  all  with  the  utmost  good-humor,  in  a  winning, 
breezy,  urbane  manner.  And  they  will  mention  the 
fact  (which  might  otherwise  have  escaped  their  oppo- 
nents) that  they  have  been  at  Oxford.  Not  for  any 
snobbish  reason,  of  course,  but  merely  to  prove  that 

177 


178     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

they  know  a  little  more  than  a  thing  or  two  about  the 
classics  and  the  moderns. 

The  spectacle  of  our  own  particular  Bourchier  hob- 
nobbing with  the  great  ones  of  the  world  has  been 
vouchsafed  to  me.  It  was  a  beautiful,  awe-inspiring 
sight ;  and  one  cannot  help  feeling  astonished  that  his 
courtier-like  qualities  have  not  received  some  kingly 
recompense.  Alas !  the  interest  of  the  Royal  Family 
in  stage  personalities  is  unavoidably  narrowed  in  sev- 
eral directions.  An  actor's  presence  in  the  Divorce 
Court  is  fatal  to  his  presence  at  the  Royal  Court,  and 
a  nodding  acquaintance  with  His  Majesty's  judges 
is  not  favorable  to  an  acquaintance,  however  slight, 
with  His  Majesty.  A  leading  actor  may  hobnob  with 
a  live  Princess — or  several  live  Princesses — but  bang 
goes  his  knighthood  if  he  dares  to  "  gag  "  his  mar- 
riage lines.  Everyone  will  agree  that  this  is  a  shock- 
ing state  of  affairs.  It  is  terrible  to  think  that  a  great 
and  good  man  may  be  forced  to  eat  his  heart  out  in 
silence  as  an  ordinary  esquire;  but  so  it  is.  .  .  .1  am 
wandering  from  the  point.  .  .  . 

The  Arthur  Bourchiers  of  all  ages  never  move  for- 
ward. They  existed  in  the  beginning  and  they  will 
be  in  at  the  death.  The  world  couldn't  get  on  with- 
out them.  They  are  necessary,  if  only  to  delay  the 
Millennium.  Just  imagine  how  dreadful  it  would  be 
if  every  new  idea  were  allowed  to  expand  ( and  even — 
God  spare  us! — fructify)  without  being  held  in  check 
by  the  Bourchier  of  its  time,  who  merely  has  to  ex- 
claim (breezily,  of  course)  "Bosh!"  and  "Shake- 
speare! "  in  order  to  settle  the  matter  for  a  score  of 
years  or  more  I 


MRS.  ASQUITH 

I  ONCE  shook  hands  with  Margot.  That  may  not 
sound  particularly  exciting.  But  it  was  at  least  an 
experience.  Margot  does  literally  shake  hands:  she 
doesn't  merely  present  you  with  three  or  more  fin- 
gers. And  she's  like  that  herself.  To  meet  her  is 
a  distinct  mental  and  physical  experience,  a  sort  of 
personal  impact.  She  comes  to  grips  with  you  in- 
stantly, and  she  is  one  of  those  very  uncommon  people 
who  insist  upon  your  undivided  attention:  you 
couldn't  possibly  carry  on  a  conversation  with  her  and 
somebody  else  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

She  has  the  art  of  making  you  believe  she  thinks 
a  devil  of  a  lot  of  you,  thus  achieving  her  real  object, 
viz.,  to  make  you  think  a  devil  of  a  lot  of  her !  Those 
who  succumb  to  her  charms  are  given  a  place  in  her 
autobiography,  with  their  conversations  verbatim. 
Those  who  don't  succumb  to  her  charms  are  also 
given  a  place  in  her  autobiography,  with  their  con- 
versations Margotized.  The  truly  fortunate  ones  are 
those  who,  like  myself,  are  content  to  shake  hands — 
and  then  remember  an  important  appointment. 

But  I  was  never  seriously  in  danger  at  all.  Be- 
cause the  one  great  attraction  of  Margot's  Memoirs 
to  the  man  in  the  street  is  that  the  authoress  appears 
to  have  suffered  from  the  most  curious  lapses  of  mem- 
ory whenever  she  was  in  the  company  of  the  man  in 
the  street.  .  .  . 

179 


SIR  HALL  CAINE 

IT  would  be  impossible  to  impress  the  personality  of 
Hall  Caine  on  the  world  more  forcefully  than  he  him- 
self has  already  impressed  it.  The  vision  of  the 
domed  head,  saucer  eyes  and  neatly  pointed  beard- 
all  resting  lightly,  aslant,  on  long,  shapely  fingers — 
will  be  remembered  until  it  is  forgotten. 

For  the  benefit  of  remote  posterity,  which  one  can 
only  pray  will  never  cease  to  be  remote,  I  shall  record 
three  scenes  in  which,  I  am  led  to  believe,  this  master- 
Manxman  entirely  succeeded  in  impressing  his  per- 
sonality on  such  contemporaries  as  were  fortunate 
.enough  to  participate  in  them. 

SCENE  1.     THE  DOGGER  BANK. 

The  news  was  already  twenty-four  hours  old.  The 
country  was  humming  with  excitement.  Some  peace- 
ful English  fishing  smacks  had  been  fired  on  by  the 
Russian  Baltic  Fleet,  on  its  way  to  join  battle  with 
the  Japs  in  the  Far  East.  The  editor  of  a  leading 
London  paper  was  discussing  the  situation  with  sev- 
eral members  of  his  staff  in  the  editorial  office.  Mr. 
Hall  Caine  was  announced.  He  entered  immediately. 
The  members  of  the  staff  moved  towards  the  door. 
"  Don't  go,  gentlemen,"  said  the  great  novelist  with 
his  well-known  courtesy.  The  door  was  shut,  the 
members  of  the  staff  formed  a  little  group  by  the  fire- 
place, and  Mr.  Caine  subsided  on  the  nearest  sofa. 

180 


SIRHALLCAINE  181 

He  was  visibly  agitated,  but  managed,  nevertheless, 
to  subside  in  the  attitude  familiarized  by  the  statue 
of  Shakespeare  in  Leicester  Square.  He  looked  at 
nothing,  very  intently,  for  half  a  minute,  and  then 
spoke : 

"  I  can't  do  it,"  he  said. 

"  What? "  asked  the  editor. 

Hall  Caine  lifted  his  head  ever  so  slightly. 

"  Did  you  say  *  What '?  "  he  murmured. 

"  Oh,  I  was  forgetting — I  must  apologize,"  said 
the  editor;  "the  latest  news  had  driven  your  article 
out  of  my  head;  "  and  then,  quickly  recollecting  him- 
self, he  added :  "  just  for  a  minute,  I  mean." 

Hall  Caine  sighed  deeply.    The  editor  went  on: 

"  Do  you  really  mean  you  can't  write  the  account 
for  us?  But  you  were  on  the  spot.  You  saw  the 
smacks  come  in " 

"Don't  remind  me  of  it!"  broke  in  the  famous 
writer;  "  it  will  be  for  ever  branded  in  my  memory. 
The  women!  The  children!  Their  cries!  Ah,  too 
terrible!  Too— too— too " 

At  this  point,  being  unable  to  think  of  a  more  em- 
phatically expressive  word  than  "terrible"  (even 
Shakespeare  sometimes  stumbled  in  his  speech),  Hall 
Caine  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  overcome  with 
emotion.  After  a  few  moments  his  natural  manliness 
reasserted  itself.  With  astonishing  self-control  he  re- 
sumed his  original  position  to  a  square  inch  and  pro- 
ceeded : 

"  Knowing  the  power  of  my  pen,  aware  of  the 
influence  my  works  exercise  on  the  thoughts  of  so 
many  people,  convinced  that  a  description  by  me  of 
the  Dogger  Bank  incident  might  sway  the  minds  of 


182     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

multitudes  and  plunge  this  nation  into  war,  I  decided 
to  take  counsel  with  my  friends.  I  first  approached 
Lord  Rosebery.  I  laid  my  misgivings  plainly  before 
him.  I  asked  for  his  advice.  '  Your  pen,'  he  said, 
'  should  never  be  used  unworthily ;  you  are  right  to 
hesitate;  reserve  it,  I  beg  you,  for  the  greatest  of  all 
causes:  Peace  and  Civilization.'  I  then  called  on  my 
old  friend  the  Bishop  of  London.  I  informed  him 
of  your  offer.  '  My  dear  fellow,'  he  said,  taking  me 
by  the  arm,  '  you  can  only  settle  a  matter  of  such 
dreadful  moment  on  your  knees.  God  will  help  you 
at  this  crisis  if  you  call  upon  Him.  As  for  me,  I 
would  not  deserve  the  name  of  friend  if  I  did  not 
exhort  you  to  hold  your  hand.' ' 

Mr.  Caine  paused,  and  then  got  up  to  go.  At  the 
door  he  turned  to  the  editor  and  said  in  the  voice  of 
a  man  who  has  suffered  and  triumphed:  "  I  am  sorry, 
deeply  sorry,  I  cannot  do  as  you  ask.  The  considera- 
tions that  urge  me  to  a  refusal  are  too  high  to  be  ig- 
nored. Good  morning,  gentlemen." 

SCENE  2.    READING  HIS  PLAY. 

The  whole  company  was  assembled,  and  sat  in  a 
semicircle  awaiting  the  author.  At  last  he  entered, 
carrying  a  portfolio,  half  an  hour  late.  "  This  chair 
is  not  high  enough,"  said  the  author.  Cushions  were 
sent  for.  '  The  cushions  are  too  soft,"  said  the  au- 
thor. Another  chair  was  sent  for.  "  I  don't  like  the 
position  of  the  light,"  said  the  author.  The  position 
of  the  light  was  changed.  "  I  would  like  a  tilted  desk 
or  lectern  to  read  on,"  said  the  author.  A  lectern 
jvas  fetched  from  a  neighboring  store.  "  I  have  for- 


SIRHALLCAINE  183 

gotten  my  reading  spectacles,"  said  the  author.  A 
taxicab  was  despatched  to  bring  his  reading 
spectacles. 

Two  hours  after  the  company  assembled,  the  au- 
thor was  adjusting  his  spectacles.  The  operation 
concluded,  he  glanced  over  the  spectacles  at  each 
member  of  the  company,  beginning  on  his  extreme 
left  and  ending  on  his  extreme  right.  He  then  pro- 
duced a  red  silk  pocket-handkerchief  and  placed  it 
on  the  lectern.  He  coughed  slightly  twice,  and  in 
a  low,  impressive  tone  read  the  words :  "  Act  I, 
Scene  I."  He  coughed  slightly  a  third  time,  read- 
justed his  spectacles,  glanced  once  more  at  the  com- 
pany, as  though  surprised  they  hadn't  broken  out  into 
applause,  and  then  continued.  The  first  word  had 
hardly  left  his  mouth  when  a  barrel-organ  immedi- 
ately beneath  the  window  struck  up :  "  It's  a  long 
way  to  Tipperary."  The  author  sat  back  in  his  seat. 
A  nervous  tremor  passed  through  the  company. 

'  Will  someone  go  quickly  and  tell  that  man," 
spake  the  author,  "  that  HALL  CAINE  is  reading 
his  play! " 

SCENE  3.     IN  CHURCH. 

The  memorial  service  for  Sir  Herbert  Tree  was 
being  held  at  St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields.  It  was  a 
most  impressive  service,  and  the  majority  of  those 
present  were  deeply  affected.  One  member  of  the 
congregation,  more  wrought  upon  than  the  others 
and  unable  to  contain  his  emotion  in  the  pew  assigned 
to  him,  stepped  out  into  the  center  of  the  aisle  and 
remained  for  several  minutes  gazing  upwards  in  a 
trance-like  posture. 


184     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

"  Hullo!  "  said  everyone  to  his  neighbor:  "  There's 
HALL  CAINE!" 

The  great  man,  whose  noblest  inspirations  (it  is 
said)  come  to  him  on  mountain- tops,  continued  to 
gaze  upwards.  .  .  . 


LEWIS  WALLER 

HE  didn't  like  it  a  bit,  but  he  had  to  pretend  he  did 
all  the  same.  I  believe  it  was  "Punch"  that  first 
satirized  the  clique  of  maiden  ladies  who  made  poor 
Waller  look  ridiculous  in  and  out  of  season.  Our 
national  comic  organ  called  them  the  "  K.O.W.  Bri- 
gade." (Explanatory  note  for  future  historians: 
K.O.W.  =  Keen  On  Waller.) 

Lewis  Waller  was  an  exceptionally  pleasant,  hail- 
fellow-well-met,  clubable  type  of  man.  And  he 
wasn't  half  as  conceited  as  he  might  forgivably  have 
been.  He  was  gifted  with  a  handsome  presence  and 
a  superb  voice.  In  the  art  of  declaiming  Shakespeare 
he  was  without  a  rival  in  his  generation.  His  voice 
hadn't  the  flute-like  flexibility,  the  exquisite  timbre 
of  Forbes-Robertson's;  but  it  had  a  resonance  about 
it,  a  bell-like  quality,  that  compelled  one's  admiration 
even  for  such  a  wretched  person  as  Henry  V. 

He  once  told  me  that  he  worshiped  Shakespeare 
and  never  wanted  to  act  in  anyone  else's  plays. 

;'  Then  why  in  the  name  of  conscience  don't  you  go 
on  producing  Shakespeare?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  would  if  I  could,  but  I  can't!  "  he  said.  "  If 
only  I  could  pay  my  way,  without  a  cent  of  profit, 
I'd  stick  to  Shakespeare.  But  it's  no  good.  The 
public  want  '  Robin  Hood '  and  '  Monsieur  Beau- 
caire  ';  and  after  all  I  must  live!  " 

"  But  what  about  your  crowds  of  female  admirers? 

185 


186     MODERN   MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

Surely  they  come  regularly  to  whatever  you  put  on? 
Their  taste  in  plays  is,  I  understand,  catholic.  So 
long  as  you  are  in  them,  they'll  be  content  with  any- 
thing—from '  Hamlet '  to  *  Charley's  Aunt.'  " 

Waller's  eyes  danced  with  merriment  while  I  was 
speaking.  Then  he  became  grave,  and  answered  my 
questions  with  two  more:  "  Will  no  one  rid  me  of 
these  turbulent  priestesses?  .  .  .  Besides,  what  shall 
it  profit  a  manager  if  he  fill  the  whole  pit  and  has  to 
paper  his  stalls? " 

So,  as  I  said  before,  he  didn't  like  it  a  bit,  but  he 
had  to  pretend  he  did  all  the  same.  .  .  . 


WINSTON  CHURCHILL 

NOTHING  short  of  death  will  prevent  Winston  from 
becoming  Prime  Minister  of  the  country  for  which 
he  has  so  nobly  sacrificed  all  his  principles.  Our 
front  benchers  would  be  lost  without  him.  Firstly 
because  he  has  a  very  pretty  wit  and  is  a  master  of 
the  art  of  saying  nothing  at  great  length.  Secondly 
because  his  hand  never  trembles  as  he  throws  the  dice 
at  the  Whitehall  Gambling  Saloons. 

He  is  the  Jack-in-the-box  of  the  English  political 
world — like  his  ancestors  before  him.  No  power  on 
earth  will  keep  him  boxed  up  for  long.  The  man 
who  can  survive  the  Antwerp  and  Gallipoli  hazards 
of  the  late  war  will  survive  anything  except  national 
education. 

Like  most  men  of  his  class,  he  is  a  half -finished 
product.  His  knowledge  is  synoptic,  his  instincts 
barbarous.  But  he  has  the  supreme  gift  of  plausi- 
bility, and  this,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things, 
should  land  us  into  several  dozen  minor  campaigns 
and  possibly  one  or  two  more  spanking  big  wars  be- 
fore he  is  laid  to  rest  by  a  sorrowing  and  grateful 
nation  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

I  have  only  once  known  him  to  be  temporarily 
cornered  in  an  argument.  Someone  asked  him  to 
say,  honestly,  whether  he  thought  the  recurrence  of 
war  for  its  own  sake  morally  justifiable.  Winston 
dashed  off  a  lengthy  series  of  qualifications  and  his- 
torical instances  to  prove,  in  effect,  that  there  was 

187 


188     MODERN   MEN    AND   MUMMERS 

a  great  deal  to  be  said  in  favor  of  it.  His  inter- 
locutor wouldn't  be  put  off ;  he  repeated  his  question, 
adding  the  emphatic:  cf  Yes  or  No?" 

Winston  was  momentarily  nonplussed;  then,  with 
an  effort,  he  rose  to  the  occasion  in  true  parlia- 
mentary style — 

"Ye.  .  .  ,  O!"  he  said. 


JOSEPH  CONRAD 

IT  is  remarkable  how  willing  we  are,  as  a  nation,  to 
idolize  anything  we  don't  produce — particularly  if 
the  product  flatters  us  by  taking  up  his,  her  or  its 
residence  among  us  as  naturally  as  any  home-bred 
substance.  Of  course  the  foreign  import — whether 
animal,  vegetable  or  mineral — has  to  fight  tooth  and 
nail  for  recognition;  but  when  once  we  take  it  to  our 
hearts  and  homes,  nothing  is  good  enough  for  it.  It 
begins  to  assume  a  sort  of  Divine  Right.  It  can  do 
no  wrong.  It  is  better,  far  better,  than  anything 
originally  our  own.  Look  at  the  difficulties  it  has 
had  to  encounter!  Look  at  the  obstacles  it  has  had 
to  surmount! 

Mr.  Joseph  Conrad  has  taken  the  country  by 
storm.  From  the  moment  of  his  first  success  each 
work  has  been  pronounced  greater  than  its  prede- 
cessor. The  English  language  has  been  ransacked 
for  superlatives  to  do  his  genius  justice.  I  tremble 
to  think  what  will  happen  when  his  next  book  ap- 
pears. May  I  venture  the  suggestion  that  the  critics 
should,  for  the  future,  discuss  him  in  Sanskrit? 
Otherwise  they  will  be  forced  to  repeat  everything 
they've  already  said. 

What  is  the  grand  secret  of  Conrad's  success? 
Not,  I  am  convinced,  his  genius;  because  there  was 
real  genius  in  his  earlier  works,  and  they  were  not 
successful.  I  am  afraid  his  popularity  has  been 
gained  by  his  style.  It  is  a  style  that  hints  at  im- 

189 


190     MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

mensities,  at  vastnesses,  at  expanses,  at  illimitables — 
at  anything,  in  fact,  that  a  walled-in,  boxed-down, 
mentally-cramped,  urban  population  knows  nothing 
about  and  therefore  dotes  upon.  The  souls  of  his 
readers  wander  aimlessly  through  the  star-lit  spaces, 
trying  to  find  expression  in  those  terrific  silences. 
The  creed  was  revealed  to  me  not  long  ago  by  an 
ardent  Conradian  in  these  mystical  words: 

"  Heavens  alive,  man!     One  can   even  feel  his 
dots. 


DEAN  INGE 

I  MET  the  "  Gloomy  Dean  "  before  he  became  gloomy 
or  a  dean — at  least  before  he  became  notoriously 
gloomy.  He  was  never,  I  believe,  renowned  for 
joviality.  In  those  days  he  had  a  fashionable  con- 
gregation somewhere  west  of  Hyde  Park  Corner, 
and  he  was  to  be  seen  sipping  tea  in  swagger  drawing- 
rooms  not  a  hundred  miles  from  Prince's  Gate. 

He  had  always  what  I  may  describe  as  a  "  down 
on  democracy."  He  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  typical 
product  of  the  Upper  Middle  Class,  and  he  cannot 
forget  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  reported 
to  have  said  that  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  was  won 
on  the  playing-fields  of  Eton.  His  "  Outspoken 
Essays  "  are  regarded  as  courageous  merely  because 
they  are  by  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  His  so-called 
advanced  views  are  no  more  advanced  than  Plato's, 
and  he  can  thank  the  classics  for  whatever  fame  he 
has  achieved. 

He  is  simply  a  class-prejudiced  clergyman  who 
happened  not  to  skip  Demosthenes  at  school,  and  his 
hatred  of  Trades  Unions  is  founded  on  an  ineradi- 
cable belief  that  the  rest  of  the  world  is  in  a  con- 
spiracy against  him. 


101 


MRS.  PATRICK  CAMPBELL 

GEORGE  ALEXANDER  told  me  that  the  most  remark- 
able discovery  he  had  ever  made  in  his  life  was  Mrs. 
Patrick  Campbell — and  that  he  had  never  ceased  to 
regret  it! 

Mrs.  Pat  is  the  most  astonishing  and  the  most  dis- 
concerting actress  on  the  English  stage.  To  quote 
Tree:  "When  she's  good,  she's  divinely  good;  but 
when  she's  bad — oh,  my  God!"  She  can  make  or 
mar  a  play.  No  one  ever  had  more  of  the  true  his- 
trionic afflatus  than  she.  And  no  one  ever  more  care- 
lessly treated  such  gifts.  Alternately  she  will  make 
you  want  to  rise  from  your  seat  and  cheer  her  to 
the  echo,  or  rise  from  your  seat  and  walk  out  of  the 
theater. 

She  can,  and  does,  produce  the  same  contrary 
effects  upon  her  managers  (managers  indeed!)  and 
her  fellow-artists.  She  either  drives  them  frantic 
with  despair  or  makes  them  want  to  lick  her  boots. 
I  have  known  occasions  when  everyone  in  the  theater 
was  running  about  doing  things,  or  trying  to  find 
things  to  do,  for  Mrs.  Pat;  and  I  have  known  other 
occasions  when  everyone  in  the  theater,  from  manager 
to  call-boy,  was  locked  up  in  a  distant  room,  or 
otherwise  concealed,  for  the  purpose  of  tearing  his 
hair  in  sacred  solitude.  According  to  the  whim  of 
the  moment  she  can  transport  those  about  her  to 
Heaven  or  Hanwell! 

That  unique  temperament  of  hers  has  brought  our 

192 


MRS.    PATRICK    CAMPBELL        193 

dramatists  and  theatrical  managers  to  their  knees. 
They  entreat  her  to  play  their  Mrs.  Tanquerays  and 
what-nots,  because  no  other  living  actress  is  a  con- 
ceivable substitute,  but  shudder  at  the  fate  that  may 
overtake  them  the  moment  she  darkens  the  stage- 
door! 

She  can't  help  it.    She  was  made  like  that.    God 
be  praised  for  it!    And  the  Devil  be  damned  for  it! 


FATHER  BERNARD  VAUGHATsT 

A  CLERGYMAN  has  this  tremendous  advantage  over  a 
layman:  he  is  taken  on  trust.  It  is  assumed  that  a 
cassock  and  a  comic  collar  transform  a  man  internally 
as  well  as  externally.  Certain  things  are  definitely 
expected  of  reverend  gentlemen.  Among  other 
things,  reverence  itself  is  expected  of  them — rever- 
ence for  customs  and  conventions  no  less  than  for 
creeds.  Thus,  when  a  priest  proclaims  from  the 
pulpit  certain  matters  that  everyone  except  a  priest 
is  supposed  to  know,  he  immediately  reaches  a  fame 
that  is  only  attained  in  other  spheres  by  geniuses, 
criminals  and  polyandrous  actresses. 

This  is  an  age  of  self-advertisement.  The  suc- 
cessful man,  the  famous  man,  the  popular  man  is  the 
one  who  booms  himself  to  the  best  advantage. 
Luckily  most  clergymen  don't  boom  with  the  rest  of 
us  for  all  they  are  worth,  but  are  generally  content 
to  intone  to  select  and  dwindling  congregations  of 
their  own.  Here  and  there,  however,  a  man  of  God 
springs  forth  into  the  arena,  filled  with  that  rare  and 
exalted  spirit  of  denunciation  which  characterized 
his  primitive  predecessors.  Of  such  is  Dean  Inge. 
Of  such  was  Bernard  Vaughan  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  present  century.  He  is  now,  for  all  practical 
purposes,  a  back-number,  largely  because  he  began 
by  shouting  so  loud  that  his  lungs  couldn't  keep  pace 
with  his  indignation.  Also  people  got  tired  of  being 
bawled  at  on  one  note. 

194 


FATHER  BERNARD  VAUGHAN  195 

I  have  been  near  him  in  restaurants,  at  private 
views,  and  in  the  mansions  of  the  great.  Once  I 
spoke  to  him  for  several  minutes  together;  but  I 
couldn't  regard  our  conversation  as  in  any  sense  in- 
timate because  he  contrived  simultaneously  to  ad- 
dress everybody  else  within  earshot. 

Yet  I  would  be  the  last  to  complain  of  our  Bernard 
Vaughans;  for  though  as  demagogues  they  eclipse 
the  laity  of  nations,  they  never  fail  to  increase  the 
public  stock  of  harmless  pleasure.  .  .  . 


IRENE  VANBRUGH 

THE  mere  existence  of  Irene  Vanbrugh  is  a  standing 
reproach  to  the  modern  stage.  What  juvenile  actress 
of  the  present  day  has  an  earthly  chance  of  taking 
her  place — or  anything  like  her  place?  She  went  on 
the  stage  at  a  time  when  one  had  to  win  through  by 
sheer  merit.  Her  art  is  an  art,  not  a  trick  of  per- 
sonality. 

The  London  stage  of  to-day  is  overrun  by  flappers 
and  jazzers.  A  lady  has  to  be  either  killingly  beau- 
tiful or  killingly  herself,  somehow  or  otherhow,  to 
be  a  really  big  success.  She  doesn't  have  to  act:  she 
has  to  allure.  Preferably,  too,  there  should  be  just 
a  breath  of  scandal  about  her,  because  an  unspotted 
domestic  life  will  never  cause  a  run  on  the  box  office. 
She  doesn't  have  to  learn  a  job.  (Why  worry  about 
learning  a  job  when  one  gets  paid  better  for  being, 
adorably,  oneself?)  Instead,  she  plays  golf,  attends 
tea-parties  in  fashionable  West  End  restaurants, 
gambles,  smokes  cigarettes  or  eats  chocolates  in  her 
spare  moments,  talks  thirteen  to  the  dozen  (chiefly 
about  nothing),  and  finishes  off  the  rollicking  day 
with  a  pirouette. 

We  cannot  be  too  grateful  for  the  fact  that  when 
Irene  Vanbrugh  commenced  her  career,  the  public 
and  the  managers  had  not  yet  discovered  that  a 
single  success,  repeated  ad  nauseam,  was  the  only 
requisite  of  a  "  star  "  actress.  They  even  realized 

196 


IRENE   VANBRUGH  197 

that  it  was  not  necessary  for  a  lady  to  resemble  an 
orthodox  portrait  of  St.  Agatha  in  order  to  give  a 
good  performance.  Perhaps  one  may  go  so  far  as 
to  say  that  they  actually  preferred  human  versatility 
to  human  statuary! 


To  the  question:  "  What  do  you  think  of  the  present 
state  of  affairs?"  the  Prime  Minister  replied: 

"  The  eruption  is  subsiding:  the  lava  is  cooling. 
Black  clouds  have  been  shrouding  the  valley,  but 
already  I  see  glimpses  of  the  sun  upon  the  mountain- 
tops.  The  ship  of  state  has  been  buffeted  by  squalls 
and  hurricanes;  and  though  the  pilot's  hair  is  now  a 
trifle  bleached,  the  port  is  in  sight  and  we  will  soon 
slip  anchor  in  calmer  waters  than  those  through 
which  we  have  manfully  plowed." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  what  of  the  Unemployment  ques- 
tion? " 

"  I  am  coming  to  that,"  answered  the  Premier. 
'  The  sharks  are  surrounding  the  vessel,  and  we 
must  throw  them  all  the  waste  food  we  can  spare 
to  keep  them  from  gnawing  the  rudder.  They  poison 
the  waters  about  us,  while  we  are  prostrated  with 
thirst.  Sooner  or  later  the  crew  must  perish  or  over- 
come these  despoilers  of  plenty.  .  .  ." 

"How  do  you  propose  to  deal  with  the  serious 
question  of  high  prices  and  lowering  wages?"  I 
broke  in. 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  said  the  Premier.  '  The  corn 
is  standing  thick  in  the  fields,  but  the  reapers  are 
wrangling  in  the  market-place.  Our  ships  go  out  to 
India,  to  America,  to  South  Africa,  to  China — yea, 
even  to  the  Antipodes — but  they  go  with  empty  holds. 
In  ten  years' — five  years' — two  years'  time.  .  .  ." 

198 


LLOYD   GEORGE  199 

"  Are  there,  then,  no  bright  spots  on  the  horizon?  " 
"  I  hear  a  rumbling  under  the  earth  .  .  .  Oh,  that 

reminds  me!    I  have  to  meet  the  Union  leaders  at 

the  House  in  ten  minutes.    Good-morning.    I  think 

I  have  answered  all  your  questions." 
And,  with  a  gracious  bow,  Mr.  Lloyd  George 

slipped  from  the  room. 

(N.B.  Feeling  that,  at  such  a  serious  moment  in 
our  country's  history,  the  foregoing  passages  from 
my  interview  with  the  Prime  Minister  will  help  and 
inspire  all  classes  of  the  community,  I  have  arranged 
with  the  publishers  that  no  action  shall  be  taken 
against  any  infringement  of  the  copyright  as  it  con- 
cerns this  particular  Post-Impression.) 


GENEVIEVE  WARD 

I  HAVE  only  seen  one  actress  of  the  grand  style  in 
my  life.  Her  name:  Genevieve  Ward.  By  a  re- 
markable stroke  of  good  fortune  her  Volumnia  in 
"  Coriolanus,"  her  Margaret  in  "  Richard  III  "  have 
survived  their  own  dramatic  epoch  and  have  been 
seen  by  a  Revue-ridden  generation. 

I  take  pride  in  the  fact  that  I  have  played  with 
her  too;  and  it  was,  if  possible,  a  more  wonderful 
experience  to  do  that  than  to  watch  her  from  the 
stalls. 

Genevieve  Ward  is,  I  suppose,  the  last  in  the  line 
of  a  great  tradition.  It  was  a  tradition  of  histrionic 
technique.  Freeness  of  movement,  fullness  of  ges- 
ture, richness  of  declamation,  breadth  of  conception 
— all  these  went  to  the  making  of  that  grand  manner 
which  built  up  the  tradition  and  which  will  pass  away 
for  ever  with  "  our  last  tragedienne." 

The  spacious  days  of  Burbage  and  Betterton, 
Mrs.  Siddons  and  David  Garrick,  Edmund  Kean 
and  Henry  Irving,  are  over  and  done  with.  The 
tradition,  which  goes  back  to  Marlowe,  is  now  as 
dead  as  Samuel  Phelps — and  not  a  little  of  Shake- 
speare's stage  popularity  was  buried  with  the  won- 
derful old  actor  of  Sadler's  Wells. 

We  are  fortunate  to  have  come  into  the  world  just 
in  time  to  catch  the  thrill  of  that  great  school,  im- 
parted to  us  by  the  flaming  art  of  Genevieve  Ward. 

200 


"JOHN  BULL" 

THE  sincerity  of  our  big  public  men  has  frequently 
been  called  in  question.  Personally,  I  refuse  to  be- 
lieve that  an  insincere  man  can  reach  eminence  and 
gain  popular  esteem. 

Perhaps  the  biggest  of  all  our  big  men — and  there- 
fore, according  to  my  calculation,  the  most  sincere — 
is  Mr.  Horatio  Bottomley. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  wonderful  evening  in  the 
Xorth  sometime  during  the  great  war.  Mr.  Bot- 
tomley was  announced  as  the  principal  speaker,  and 
the  hall  was  crammed  from  floor  to  ceiling.  Never, 
surely,  was  this  always-powerful  orator  more  potent. 
His  auditors  were  moved  and  enchanted  beyond 
words.  I  cannot  (who  could?)  give  any  idea  of  the 
emotion  that  seized  and  choked  us  at  points  in  his 
astonishing  discourse.  His  peroration  still  haunts 
me — a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy  forever.  The  en- 
thusiasm it  evoked  was  as  "  unprecedented  "  as  it 
always  is  whenever  Mr.  Bottomley  speaks. 

"  And  now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  there 
are  three  things  that  are  going  to  win  us  this  war. 
One  thing  is  our  position  in  regard  to  munitions." 
At  this  point  the  speaker  said  a  few  words  about  the 
munitions  situation  generally.  He  continued :  "  The 
second  thing  that  will  help  us  through  this  terrible 
ordeal  is  that  we  are  Englishmen !  "  This  sentiment 
was  naturally  greeted  with  an  immense  outburst  of 

201 


202     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

cheering.  For  several  minutes  Mr.  Bottomley  stood 
erect  on  the  platform  waiting  for  the  silence  that 
patriotism  would  hardly  give.  At  last  he  held  up 
his  hand  and  order  was  restored.  In  solemn  tones 
the  orator  proceeded: 

"And  the  last  thing,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that 
will — beyond  cavil  or  question — give  us  Victory 
Triumphant  is  THAT  THERE  IS  A  GOD  IN 
HEAVEN!" 

At  these  inspiring  words  the  whole  audience  rose 
as  one  man  and  nearly  lifted  the  roof  off.  Mr.  Bot- 
tomley bent  before  the  deafening  roar,  and  then, 
with  a  bashfulness  that  does  him  honor,  quietly  dis- 
appeared from  the  public  gaze.  He  was  naturally 
pleased  at  the  success  of  his  efforts  in  the  sacred  cause 
of  Humanity,  but  being  a  really  big  man  he  mini- 
mized the  true  extent  of  his  magnificent  achievement 
by  saying  to  the  first  person  he  ran  up  against  after 
leaving  the  stage: 

"That  fetched  'em— what?" 


THE  IRVINGS 

THE  brothers,  H.  B.  and  Laurence  Irving,  were  a 
curious  pair.  Great  things  were  at  one  time  expected 
of  H.  B.,  but  they  never  came  to  anything.  Great 
things  were  then  expected  of  Laurence,  but  they 
never  came  to  anything  either. 

I  am  informed,  and  am  quite  willing  to  believe, 
that  H.  B.  Irving  was  a  rattling  good  actor  when 
he  took  the  town  by  storm  as  The  Admirable 
Crichton.  But  when  I  first  saw  him,  he  was  hard  at 
work  modeling  himself  on  his  father  and  acting  in 
his  father's  tenth-rate  melodramas.  Having  rever- 
ently prostrated  himself  before  the  tradition  of  Sir 
Henry,  he  never  properly  got  on  his  feet  again;  and 
whenever  he  essayed  a  serious  role,  he  succumbed 
to  the  illusion  that,  to  be  thoroughly  effective,  the 
words  should  be  spoken  in  a  moan  or  a  wail.  Un- 
fortunately his  father  died  before  I  left  school,  and 
I  never  saw  him;  but  I  assume  that  the  mantle  of 
Elijah  fell  upon  the  shoulders  of  Elisha,  his  first- 
born, and  practically  smothered  him  in  the  process. 
H.  B.  was  a  first-rate  comedian.  A  Repertory 
Theater  would  have  picked  him  out  consistently  for 
its  Charley's  Aunts  and  its  Private  Secretaries.  But 
his  performance  of  Hamlet  should  have  been  for- 
bidden by  Act  of  Parliament.  It  was  too  bad  even 
to  make  jokes  about.  .  .  . 

Brother  Laurence  was  something  of  a  scholar.  He 
was  excellent  in  "  thinking "  parts,  and  once,  in 

203 


204      MODERN    MEN    AND    MUMMERS 

"  Typhoon,"  he  achieved  greatness.  I  think  he  must 
have  had  more  of  his  father's  peculiar  genius  than 
his  brother,  because  there  were  moments  of  quite 
superb  tragic  force  in  his  acting.  He  was  a  naturally 
morbid  man — suicidally  so — and  the  influence  of 
Russia  and  Russian  literature  upon  him  were  not  of 
a  kind  to  dispel  his  constitutional  gloom.  He  didn't, 
like  his  brother,  display  a  dilettantish  interest  in 
crime.  He  knew  too  much  about  it.  ... 

All  in  all,  I  imagine  H.  B.  inherited  his  father's 
superficial,  and  Laurence  his  father's  fundamental, 
characteristics.  Neither  of  them  added  much  to  their 
inheritance. 


THE  CHESTERTONS 

I  SENT  several  essays  to  Cecil  Chesterton,  when  he 
was  editor  of  "  The  New  Witness."  They  were,  in 
my  opinion,  very  good  essays.  I  mentioned  in  my 
letter  that  it  was  just  possible  my  work  showed  the 
influence  of  his  famous  brother  G.  K.  C.,  whose  writ- 
ings at  that  time  were  making  a  great  impression  on 
me.  Cecil  replied  gracefully,  asking  me  to  come  and 
see  him. 

"I  like  your  essays  very  much  indeed,"  he  said; 
"  would  you  care  to  try  your  hand  at  reviews  of 
novels  for  the  '  Witness '  ?  I  can  offer  you  £3  a 
week." 

'  Very  sorry,"  said  I,  "  but  I  can't  write  about 
what  doesn't  interest  me.  Novels  don't  interest  me. 
If  you'll  put  me  on  to  the  historical  stuff,  memoirs, 
etc.,  I'll  be  delighted." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Full  up ! — sorry — very  sorry 
— can't  be  helped,  I  suppose — but  I'd  like  to  have 
you  working  here  if  only  because  of  my  brother." 

I  didn't  quite  catch  his  meaning.  "  Your  brother!  " 
I  exclaimed;  "  what's  he  got  to  do  with  it? " 

He  looked  at  me  severely.  "  You  are  a  friend  of 
his,  I  understood  you  to  say? " 

'  You  misunderstood  me.  I  said  in  my  letter  that 
he  had  influenced  me — that  is  all !  " 

Cecil  searched  for  my  letter,  found  it  eventually, 
and  held  the  sheet  about  two  inches  from  his  nose 

205 


206     MODERN   MEN   AND   MUMMERS 

as  he  read  it.  Then  he  rose,  held  out  his  hand,  wished 
me  a  "  good-morning  " — and  I  left  hurriedly. 

"  The  love  of  brothers  passeth  all  understanding,'* 
I  murmured  as  I  turned  into  the  Strand.  .  .  . 

A  year  later  I  was  in  a  public-house  somewhere  in 
the  region  of  Fleet  Street.  An  enormous  person 
with  bushy  hair,  a  mustache  and  eye-glasses,  filled  a 
good  third  of  the  saloon.  '  That,"  I  said  to  myself, 
"  can  be  no  other  than  the  creator  of  '  Sunday '." 

I  edged  round  him  and  got  to  a  position  from 
which  I  could  address  him  with  a  minimum  of  dis- 
comfort to  either  of  us. 

"How's  your  brother?"  I  demanded. 

His  glasses  fell  from  his  eyes  and  he  muttered  to 
himself  several  words,  of  which  I  caught  only  the 
following:  "Where  does  he  pick  them  up?"  ' 

I  ordered  a  bitter  while  he  was  recovering.  At 
last  he  said,  in  a  low  voice :  "  Is  this  your  first  drink 
to-day?" 

"  Yes,"  I  replied. 

"  Scandalous!  "  he  said,  and  added  quickly:  "  Your 
health!" 

'  Yours!  "  I  reciprocated.  "  By  the  way,"  I  went 
on,  "  there  is  one  thing  about  you  that  has  always 
puzzled  me.  Why  do  you  run  down  the  eighteen- 
nineties,  and  especially  its  god,  Oscar  Wilde,  when 
your  own  works  are  just  as  paradoxical,  just  as — 
forgive  me — absurd,  though  not  as  amusing,  as  his? 
Indeed,  in  many  respects,  you  are  a  disciple  of 
Wilde's." 

G.  K.  C.  paused,  with  his  mug  half-way  to  his 
mouth.  "I  have  heard  that  heresy  before!"  he 
thundered ;  and  then,  with  an  awful  solemnity,  he  vin- 


THECHESTERTONS  207 

dicated  the  seriousness  of  his  calling  in  these  words: 
"  The  wildest  thing  that  has  ever  been  said  about  me 
is  that  I  am  influenced  by  Wilde.  Wilde's  writings 
are  essentially  refined.  It  is  vulgar  to  be  refined. 
I  am  not  refined  and  I  am  not  vulgar,  though  (thank 
God!)  I  am  low.  Lowliness  is  next  to  godliness. 
The  Eternal  Bar  is  reached  by  way  of  the  public 
bar:  the  tap-root  of  heaven  is  the  tap-room  of  earth. 
It  follows  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  can  only  be 
entered  with  a  bottle  of  Bass's  pale  ale  in  either 
hand.  Now  Wilde  was  sufficient  of  a  snob  to  at- 
tempt admission  with  champagne — or  even  sherbet ! — 
and  I  haven't  the  least  doubt  that  Peter  (whose  sur- 
name, by  the  way,  was  Guinness)  refused  him." 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  The  spell  was  at  length 
broken  by  someone  calling  for  a  pint  of  'arf-an-'arf. 

"  What  is  your  name? "  suddenly  asked  G.  K.  C. 

"  M  or  N,"  I  answered,  feeling  at  the  moment  that 
I  might  be  in  the  presence  of  the  Almighty. 

"  Sunday  "  lifted  his  hand  and  was  on  the  point  of 
opening  his  mouth  when,  with  a  mighty  effort,  I 
regained  my  earthly  consciousness  and  vanished. 

It  is  all  I  can  do  to  prevent  my  hand  from  auto- 
matically rising  to  my  hat  whenever  I  pass  that 
apostolic  pub.  .  .  . 


GERALD  CUMBERLAND 

IT  is  a  pity  that  Gerald  Cumberland  doesn't  stick 
to  racy  impressions  of  his  contemporaries.  He  does 
that  kind  of  thing  so  much  better  than  the  serious 
stuff  he  has  attempted  since.  Not  that  I  think  the 
personal  sketches  in  his  first  book  have  any  lasting 
value — he  hasn't  enough  critical  power  for  that — but 
they  are  at  least  entertaining,  if  rather  hard  on  him- 
self. He  isn't  half  as  unpleasant  as  they  make  him 
out  to  be.  He's  a  friendly,  jovial  little  man,  with  a 
taking  twinkle  in  his  eyes;  and  he  appears  to  labor 
under  the  quite  charming  delusion  that  he  can  write 
love-stories. 

He  brought  a  most  enjoyable  morning's  chat  to  a 
close  by  asking  me  if  I  would  like  a  copy  of  his 
'  Tales  of  a  Cruel  Country."  Naturally  I  said  I 
would  be  delighted.  Before  handing  me  the  book 
he  said  he  would  mark  which,  in  his  opinion,  were  the 
best  stories  in  it.  "  Very  interesting  "  I  assented  as 
he  searched  for  a  pencil.  He  then  proceeded  to  mark 
each  story  from  the  top  downwards,  without  missing 
a  single  title.  I  stopped  him  at  about  the  eighth  and 
suggested  that  it  would  save  time  if  he  put  a  cross 
against  those  (if  there  were  any)  which  in  his  opinion 
weren't  quite  as  good  as  the  others.  He  agreed,  and 
put  a  cross  against  two  stories  out  of  a  total  of 
twenty-two. 

After  reading  the  book,  I  did  not  want  to  quarrel 
with  him  over  those  two.  .  .  . 

208 


A     000  624  909     8 


